


Calling Doctor Love

by PastelWonder



Category: Blitz (2011), Spy (2015)
Genre: AU, Crossover Pairings, Dr. Susan Cooper, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 26,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelWonder/pseuds/PastelWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the virulent dissolution of his marriage, Sergeant Tom Brant is convinced he has no heart left to give anyone.</p><p>Dr. Susan Cooper isn't about to put her hard-won professional success on the line for a battered detective with questionable ethics. </p><p>Funny how both sides can be dead wrong at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holy_bananas_batman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holy_bananas_batman/gifts).



> Just... why, Pastel? Why?

Brant hated hospitals, especially the ones in the South East. They smelled like piss and bleach, and they were overrun with scum - vagrants blacked out from drinking too much mouthwash, dealers shot to shit on sales gone sideways, kids who thought they were tough enough to survive an initiation and figured out the hard way that they weren’t.

He snorted, spitting into the fake potted plant next to him in the waiting room.

A homely, middle-aged woman in a teal overcoat made a disgusted noise and shifted in her chair, pointing herself away from him. She stared determinedly at the soap on the tele hanging above the receptionist counter.

He couldn't honestly remember the last time he’d seen a doctor - well, seen a doctor he wasn’t shopping for tranqs or pain killers. Made it a hell of a lot easier to hook a junkie snitch when you could offer him a hit at the first meet. Old Pavlov principle, and whatnot.

He coughed, a vicious barking _whroo-haa-haa-acck_ that rankled his chest like a barbed mace. It lasted a good thirty seconds, and his chest felt like it was on fire as he wiped the phlegm in his hand on his jeans and thumbed the tears out of his eyes.

He’d tried all the usual remedies: doubling his cigarette intake, two Specials in the morning and at night, and, of course, lots of Irish whiskey. None of it was helping though. Strange.

Brant would have grit his teeth and bared it, rode it out until he’d finally hacked up the last of it, except that it had gotten worse. To the point that he’d felt like he was having a heart attack this morning, running down a suspect. He had eventually passed out from not being able to get enough air in. After he’d run the little fucker down and gotten his licks in, of course.

He looked down at his raw knuckles and smirked.

Still, it’d been embarrassing as fuck to wake up looking into Nash’s concerned face as Nash shouted, “Get to the fucking doctor now, Brant! That’s an order.”

“Thomas Brant?”

A nurse in pink scrubs covered in yellow daisies called him, clip chart in hand, from the doorway leading to the exam rooms.

He stood with a grunt, knees popping, and made sure to catch the eye of the lady across the waiting room as he snorted and hacked another wad into the plant.

She scoffed, mouth open in shock.

The nurse leaned away from him as he passed through the door. “Er… please… take off your shoes and… step on the scale.”

She took his vitals, avoiding looking him in the eye.

Not a pretty face, and a bit too lean for his liking, but she had nice tits. He ogled them as she took his blood pressure, smirking up at her when she caught him.

She asked him a thousand questions, which he answered with gruff, “Yeah”s, “Nah”s, and “Dunno, luv”s.

When she asked him what his major complaint was, he said, “Coughin' a fuckin’ lung up.”

She nodded, taking notes, and pointed down the hall with her pen. “Follow me, please.”

She didn’t look as if she much liked the idea of him being behind, and she sort of side-shuffled down the hall to his examining room, keeping one eye on him the entire time.

“Take a seat, sir. The doctor will be in shortly.”

‘Shortly’ meant fifteen minutes, which was enough time for him to go through the cabinets, wash his hands, apply two types of antiseptics to his knuckles, pocket the one he liked best, and find the flexible butterfly band aids. He was cramming a wade of them into the inside pocket of his jacket when the door opened.

“Bout bloody time-” he stopped. _What do we ‘ave ‘ere?_

This little nurse was a fucking fox. Nice plush frame, thick thighs, and had what the young lads at the station called _‘uge gazungas_. That strawberry blonde hair… Fuck, he liked a longhaired girl. Pretty face too - plump lips and a small, straight nose and big green eyes that shined in the blue-white fluorescent light as she said, “Mr. Brant?”

“Sergeant Brant,” he corrected, giving her his most charming leer. _American. Adds another layer of delicious, donnit?_

She flashed him a bright, dimpled smile. “Whoops, sorry! Sergeant Brant.”

_Jaysus. Fuck._

She switched her clipboard and pen to her left hand, offered her right. “Doctor Cooper. Pleased to meet you.”

_Scrrrrrreeeechhhh. Doctor?_

“Doctor?”

She smiled again; this time there was an edge to it, like, _Oh boy, here we go_. “Yes, Sergeant Brant. Doctor.”

“Well,” he sat on the edge of the examining table, butcher paper crinkling beneath him as he propped one foot up on the examiner’s stool. “You’ll be _examinin’_ me, then, doc?”

She looked like she was trying to hold back a sigh as she nodded. “Yep.”

He laid back on the table, tucked his hands under his head. “By all means.”

She snorted a laugh at that, shaking her head. “Police officers,” she muttered to herself.

_What’s that supposed to mean?_

“See a lot of coppers?” he tried to sound casual, eyes on her ass as she set her clipboard and pen on the counter. She fished a tongue depressor out of one of the glass apothecary jars.

“Oh, yes,” she turned, made a motion for him to sit up. “Almost all my patients are police officers.”

Made sense. This was the hospital his division contracted with for healthcare coverage. Not that he’d been to see someone in all the years he’d been at Southend. But he’d picked Falls up here when she’d finished up her thirty days in rehab.

He sat up, watching her face as he asked, “You like officers, Doctor Cooper?”

She gave him a half-smile as she fished a light out of her lab coat pocket. “Open.”

“Hmm.” She looked around the inside of his mouth, applying pressure to the depressor when she wanted him to tip his head down. “Ok, tilt your head back.”

He mentally kicked himself for not having a mint earlier.

She clicked her flashlight off, popping open the rubbish bin and tossing in the tongue depressor. “How long have you had this cough?”

She turned back to him, slipping a silicon cap over the end of her flashlight.

“Bout three months,” he said as she pressed the light into his ear. He could feel her body heat through his jacket sleeve. “Been gettin’ worse.”

“Mm-hm. Turn this way,” she turned his head with her fingers on his jaw. He was eye-level with her breasts as she looked into his other ear. “Do you cough at night?”

He breathed her in, smelling hand sanitizer and laundry soap and perfume. “Yeah.”

She nodded, uncapping her light and pocketing the silicone cover. She tilted his head back with her finger under his chin. “Open your eyes nice and wide for me.”

He gripped the edge of the examining table to stop himself from gripping her as she looked into his right eye. She lifted his eyelid, “Look down, please.”

He did, straight down the neck of her lab coat and the pullover underneath. _Christ._

“Ok, look up. How much sleep do you get a night?”

“Depends,” he breathed, looking into her eyes.

“On average,” she clarified, purposefully side-stepping his come-on.

He had to think about it. “Three, four hours. Maybe five, on a weekend.”

“Ah yes. Cop hours. Sounds about right”

He grinned. _She gets it._

Repeating the process with the other eye, she asked, “Does the coughing wake you up at night?”

“Yeah.”

“How about snoring?” She clicked her light off, deposited the silicon cover in the trash and made a few notes. “Do you snore, Sergeant Brant?”

“Dunno,” he shrugged, giving her a pointed up-and-down look. “Might ‘ave to do a ‘omesteady on that one, doc.”

She made another note and a soft _hmph_ sound, eyes crinkling in the corners. “That won’t be necessary.”

She opened a cabinet, took out a stethoscope.

“Ok,” she tucked the earpieces into her ears, rubbed the metal chestpiece against the palm of her hand to warm it up. “Would you take off your jacket and sweater, please?”

He maintained eye contact as he worked his jacket off and dragged his pullover over his head, static electricity in the wool crackling in his ears.

“Want this off?” he asked, crossing his arms over his abs and taking the hem of his tee shift in both hands.

“Nope - we’re all set.” She gave him a thumbs-up, eyes flitting from his arms to his chest. “I’ll just, slide this up under…”

She slipped a hand under his shirt, eyes fixed determinedly on his shoulder as she pressed the metal chestpiece to his pec, over his heart. “Take a deep breath for me.”

He did. She winced. “Again, slowly.”

She closed her eyes, center of her brow wrinkling in concentration as she listened. “Again - this time hold it.”

He did, filling his chest to the brim. Immediately, there was a hot, spiked sensation, and he coughed violently.

She jerked back a little, stretching across the examining room to tear a paper towel off the rack over the sink.

“That’s it,” she soothed, handing him the paper towel and untucking her earpieces. She let the stethoscope hang around her neck as she gently _thump-thumped_  his back.

He wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth, snorted and rubbed the tears out of his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Is that pretty typical, Sergeant Brant?” she asked, holding out her hand for the paper towel.

He handed it to her. “Nah - usually it’s worse. You’re makin’ it better alread-”

He sputtered and hacked again.

She chucked the paper towel in the trash, washed her hands in the utility sink.

“According to your intake, you’re a pack-a-day smoker?” She clicked and unclicked her pen as she eyed him over her clipboard.

“S’right,” he replied with a defiant tilt of his chin. _What of it?_

She sighed through her nose, made another note. “Sergeant Brant, I’ll need to take some x-rays to confirm, but I am pret-ty sure you have a mycoplasma bacterial infection in your lungs. Ever heard of walking pneumonia?”

He snorted. “Sure.”

“Mycoplasma are a type of bacteria that thrive in mucus-dense lung tissue.” She gestured to a chart of the human lung on her wall.

“Mucus secrets from these sacs in the lungs here,” she pointed, “and here, settling into the tissue lining.” She ran the blunt end of her pen along the curve of the cartoon lung.

“A healthy lung sac will secret the minimal amount of mucus needed for the lung to function normally-”

He nodded. “Like axle grease on a bolt thread.”

She smiled, pointing at him with her pen. “Exactly. Smoking causes an overproduction of mucus in the glands, creating build-up. Over time, this becomes a host to different types of infectious organisms. Mycoplasma being one of them.”

She smoothed her fringe out of her eyes. “We’ll do some blood work, and a scan of your lungs, just to be sure we’re not missing anything-”

_Like cancer_ , he thought darkly.

“-but I’ve seen this enough to be fairly confident it’s walking pneumonia.” She opened her cabinet, stretching up to rifle through the box of samples he’d pilfered early. He watched her, warmth pouring through him.

“I want you...to take… these decongestants… ah-ha!” She took out a little packet of green pills.

“Here,” she held them out to him, a pretty flush from all the reaching dusty her cheeks.

He stood, practically chest-to-chest with her, reveling in her soft, _Wha-_ of  surprise, and took the packet from her. “Should I take two and call you in the morning?”

She took a step back. He followed, never having fully appreciated how small examination rooms were before that very moment.

She looked him in the eye, trying to sound unruffled as she said, “I’ve heard that line a million times, Sergeant Brant.”

He smirked. “Such a sexy little thing, got me all 'ot and bothered. Bloke can’t think straight like that.”

He’d seen _that_ look a million times; the one a suspect got when he punched a neat hole through their liquid-tight alibi. “Tell you what, what time you get off? I’ll take yah out, and I promise, I’ll come up with somethin’ more original to entertain yah.”

She took a deep breath, held her hand out, _Stop_.

“Sergeant Brant, I am going to ask you this once - please, _sit down_.”

_That tone…_

She has worked with law enforcement, hasn’t she?

He smirked. Liked a girl who can hold her own. Didn't have to worry about breaking her, that way.

He held his hands up, _Alright, take it easy_ , and backed up to sit on the examining table.

She looked relieved, and like she was a little surprised it was that easy.

_Not by ‘alf, sweet’eart._

She straightened her lab coat. “I am going to write you a referral for the x-rays. They should be able to take those today, after you leave my office, in the lab upstairs. They’ll send me the results, and I’ll confirm it's pneumonia before prescribing treatment. In the meantime,” her look softened a little, “try to cut back on the cigarettes, and get a couple more hours sleep.”

“For you,” he gave her a once-over. “Anythin’.”

“Seriously,” she tucked her pen into her breast pocket, leveling an imploring look. “I see you boys come in here, sick as dogs and determined not to do a dang thing about it. But here’s the problem, sweet pea: you can’t willpower this away.”

_You boys? Sweet pea?_

“Give your body a chance to recuperate, and you’ll be good as new.” She gathered up her clipboard and opened the examining room door. “After you, Sergeant.”

“Oh, and Sergeant,” she called as he started down the hall. “One more thing?”

She crooked her finger at him, _Come here, you._

 

_Too ‘ard to resist, aye?_

He sidled up to her, propped his hands on his hips. “What, then?”

She glanced around, lowered her voice. “The sinus medication, in your jacket pocket?”

She held out her hand with a sweet little smile.

The smirk dropped right off his face.

She wiggled her fingers expectantly.

He dug them out of his pocket, smacking them into her hand.

She wrinkled her nose at him cutely. “Thank you.”

He watched her disappear around the corner before he turned on his heel and stalked to the front desk.

“Like to schedule a follow-up,” he told the receptionist.

“Sure thing, luv. ‘old on one moment.”

He nodded, spying a sheet on the desk that said, _Physician Weekly Schedule_.

“Got a lolly?” he asked her.

“Mmm, yes!” She stood, crossed the room to the bowl of candy on the filing cabinets. He swiped the sheet off the desk, folded it and tucked it into his pocket.

She handed him the sucker. “‘ere you are, luv.”

 **  
** He smirked, leaving the wrapper on the counter as he popped it into his cheek. “Thanks.”


	2. Give It To Me Straight, Doc

According to the schedule, Doctor Cooper would be off at four-thirty. That’d given him enough time to get down to the station and have one of the WPCs he found loafing in the canteen look her up on the computer.

 

Susan Marie Cooper, thirty-two, born and raised in Iowa. Pre-med at the University of Virginia. MD from Oxford. Two years residency at Saint Thomas, and now she’d been a general physician at King’s College for three years.

 

_Shoulda gone to the doctor’s sooner._

 

She wasn’t married, lived alone in a flat near Westminster. He’d made sure to scrawl down her address, license plate, and telephone number while he had her details up. The WPC who’d pulled it for him asked what he wanted with Susan. He’d grinned.

 

Four-thirty-five, she walked out of the lift into the parking garage, head down as she dug through her purse for her keys. She was wearing a grey trench belted at the waist over a white sweater, and a pair of black slacks. She had on glossy wedges that matched her handbag.

 

She walked right past the pillar he was leaning against, smoking a cigarette, and he was just about to whistle for her when she stopped and spun around.

 

“Sergeant. Brant.” She crossed her arms over her chest. It had the effect of pushing her tits up and together over her sweater neckline. “Back so soon?”

 

Her tone said, _Why oh why am I not surprised?_

 

“Wanted to see my results.” He ashed his cigarette. “Find out if I’d live to see another day.”

 

She made a soft, disgusted noise and marched up to him. She pinched the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked it across the bay.

 

“What?” he crowed, positively gleeful he’d ruffled her. “Was only my third today. ‘ad one fore I saw yah,” he looked her up and down, “one after I left, and one while I was waitin’ for yah.”

 

She made a chopping motion, _Enough_ , closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Look, buddy - I know you guys are,” she gestured vaguely, “tenacious, and that some women are… I don’t know… _into that,_ ” she made air quotes.

 

She hiked her purse up her shoulder and looked him in the eye. “But I’m not. So…”

 

When he didn’t move, she waved her arms, “Git along, little doggie. Head ‘em up, move ‘em out, rawhide.”

 

_What the fuck?_

 

He chuckled, reaching out to pluck a bit of curl off her shoulder and wind it around his finger. “Bit of a strange bird, aren’t you, doc?”

 

“Wha-I-ugh!” She slapped his hand out of her hair. She gave him a repulsed look, turned on her heel and stomped off towards her car. Her ass jiggled generously with each step; he made sure to stay a ways behind her as he followed so he could watch.

 

He leaned against her driver-side door as she fumbled through her purse for her keys. She ignored him until she found them, tucking her hair behind her ear and growling, “Move.”

 

He tucked his hands in his jacket pockets, crossed his legs at the ankle. “Or what?”

 

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’ll arrest me?”

 

She kneed him in the groin.

 

Hard.

 

“Uhh- Fuck!”

 

She wrenched him away from her car; he stumbled a few feet, doubling over and cupping his piece.

 

He was dimly aware she’d opened her door and climbed into her car as pain lanced through his groin.

 

He heard her window roll down, looked up through watering eyes at her as she said, “Lay off the ciggity-wiggities, Sergeant.”

 

She peeled out of the parking garage, tires squealing on the concrete.

 

He sat down on his ass and laughed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've always wondered to myself - well, not *always*, but ever since I wrote Return To Me - would Susan Cooper go out with Tom Brant? Like, if he didn't look exactly like her dead lover?
> 
> *looks dubious* I don't know...


	3. Thing Is Doc, I've Got This Funny Tickle

Two days later, he wore his grey button pullover and newest dark wash jeans to his follow-up appointment. He’d shaved that morning, and sucked a mint while the nurse re-checked his vitals.

 

This time, he only had to wait five minutes before Doctor Cooper knocked on the examining room door.

 

“S’open,” he called, hands tucked into his pockets as he adopted a casual lean against the counter.

 

“Good morning, Sergeant Brant,” she offered him a small, sly smile. “How’s the groin?”

 

_God, this little minx…_

 

He thumbed his nose. “Bigger and better than evah. Wanna look?”

 

“Oh, nooo, thank you.” She held up a hand as she consulted her clipboard. The corners of her mouth curled in a frown.

 

“Welp, your x-rays came back. And it is most definitely pneumonia.”

 

She settled her clipboard against her hip, eyed him doubtfully. “Honestly, Sergeant, I don’t know how you’re still standing. These results… You should be in the hospital.”

 

His chest swelled, which was unfortunate, because it sent him into a vicious hacking fit.

 

“Ok, ok - easy,” she eased him onto the examination table, directed him to put his head between his knees.

 

He wheezed for breath, coughing _whrawr-harr-harr-aack!_

 

“That’s it. Take deep breaths,” she soothed, working her plump hand inside the collar of his shirt to press her stethoscope against his back. Her skin felt warm on his.

 

“Can’t,” he growled between coughs, feeling like he was trying to breathe underwater.

 

_Well, isn’t this a fine way to impress a girl?_

 

“No no, don’t try to stop.” He heard her tear paper towels off the roll above the sink. She handed him the wad, bending down to catch his eye as she said, “I need you to cough all that up for me, ok baby?”

 

 _Baby?_ He nodded.

 

She patted his back. “There’s a good boy.”

 

In another minute, he stopped, rasping hard. He felt exhausted, like he’d run ten miles. He looked at the wad of paper towels; they were coated in green and white phlegm.

 

He stood to toss it, and felt his knees buckle as his vision greyed out.

 

_Bloody ‘ell._

 

“Whoa! Not so fast.” She shored him up with her shoulder as she helped him lower gently back down to the table.

 

She smiled to herself, _Can you believe this guy?_ and shook her head. “Good gravy! Take a minute to catch your breath, killer.”

 

He nodded, letting her take the paper towels from him and accepting the little plastic cup of water she offered.

 

“Here’s the deal: you need to go on bedrest.”

 

He cleared his throat to say, _Like ‘ell I do_ , but she cut him off. “I mean it, Sergeant. No cigarettes, no boozing, no policing, no nothin’. This isn’t a cold, or the flu. People die from pneumonia. Every year. Every _day_. I’ve seen it happen to men younger and healthier than you.”

 

The way her eyes looked as she said it, large and soft and sad, he believed her.

 

“Bedrest, aye?” he gruffed, hoping to God the gravel in his voice sounded sexy and not pathetic. He tried a cocky half-smile.

 

“Yes.” She smiled back. “And before you ask, no, I do not make house calls.”

 

He didn’t trust himself to chuckle without hacking up a lung. So he gave her a snort instead.

 

“I’m calling in a prescription for antibiotics and a nighttime cough suppressant-”

 

His brow furrowed, “Thought you said I needed to hack it up?”

 

She nodded. “You do, and you need to sleep.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “And there’s no way you will coughing like that.”

 

She wrote something on her clipboard. The room was quiet except for the sound of her pen scrawling across the paper.

 

“I want you…on your back... for three weeks.”

 

“Three weeks?” he stood, shook his head, sneering. “Don’t think so, luv.”

 

“Oh, I think so, Sergeant Brant,” she said sternly. “If you want to get better, bucko, you need to give your lungs a chance to heal. And that means no crime-fighting for three weeks.”

 

“What the fuck am I supposed tah do for three weeks?” he growled, feeling a bit more like himself as he got angrier.

 

Who the fuck did she think she was, telling him he was off the job for almost a month?

 

“Some of my patients say they find reading to be very relaxing.” She tore a pink slip off her clipboard and handed it to him. _Notice of Medical Leave of Absence_.

 

He noted grimly it was the carbon copy. She’d be sending the original to Brown at the station, no doubt.

 

She opened the door, gestured for him to walk out first. As he passed, she said, “You seem like a resourceful man, Sergeant Brant. I’m sure you’ll think of some way to pass the time.”

 

He glowered at her. “S’that a hint, doc?”

 

“Nope.” She pointed down the hall with her pen. “Tammy at the front desk will call in your prescriptions. If you need anything,” she waited until he met her eyes to emphasize she was serious, “if you start to feel worse, call the office and make an appointment to see me.”

 

“And if I start to feel bettah?” He gave her a meaningful look, lowering his voice to a suggestive tone as he asked, “Where can I reach you?”

 

She rolled her eyes, dimples peeking out under the apples of her cheeks as she fought a smile. _You are incorrigible_ , her look said. “Three weeks, Sergeant Brant.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yikes... I have a feeling I know what Sergeant Brant will be up to in lieu of fighting crime. And I *don't* think Susan's going to like it.
> 
> Or maybe... she will. ;>


	4. She's An Uptown Girl, Livin' In Her High-Class World

“Ain’t you supposed to be on bed rest?” Falls asked, chip hovering between her mouth and the take-out sack.

“I’m sittin’ down, aren’t I?” he replied around a mouthful of burger, raising his hand off the steering wheel a bit for emphasis. “Sides, it’s a stakeout. S’not like I’m runnin’ down suspects.”

Falls eyed him doubtfully as he chewed.

_Fuck, if you’re gonna ask, mate, s’now or never._

“Falls?”

“Yah?”

“What you look for in a bloke?”

“What?!” She sprayed him and half his front seat in mostly-chewed chips.

“Jaysus, Fallsy,” he growled, swiping at his jacket sleeve with the back of his hand. He glared at her. “Not askin’ yah for a ride-”

She sputtered.

“Jus askin’ - yah know - what women are wantin’ these days.”

He regretted it as soon as he’d said it.

Falls lit up like a Christmas tree. “You! Yah got a girl yah fancy, doncha?”

She did a delighted little dance, waving her hands in front of her like eels and shrugging her shoulders. “Wasser name?” she sang.

He scrubbed a hand over his face.

_No turnin’ back now._

“Susan.”

She paused mid-groove. “Susan Marie, that girl you been stalkin’?”

“Stalkin’?” he balked. _What the fuck?_

“Yah, ‘eard bout it from Vicki. Said you was lookin’ up a girl for…” Falls waggled her eyebrows at him.

_Vicki? Oh, right, the WPC._

“Not stalkin’ ‘er. She’s my doctor.”

“What?!” Falls threw her head back against the headrest, laughing like that was the funniest shit she’d ever heard.

“Just forget it,” he growled, leaning his arm on the steering wheel and staring out the driver-side window.

She _whapp_ ed him on the bicep with the back of her hand, cackling, “Tom Brant, sexist-pig-redneck-copper-from-Brixton, fallen in love wif some snooty Essex doctor-girl!”

“Not in love with ‘er,” he groused. “And she’s not from Essex. She’s American.”

Falls covered her mouth as she screamed with laughter, like that made it ten times funnier.

“Not-not in love wif ‘er, aye?” she cooed when she was finally settling down.

“Nah.” He sniffed, thumbed his nose. “Just wanna show ‘er a good time, take ‘er for a ride or two.”

He thought about the way her ass rippled in that parking bay.

_Or ten._

“Oooh, sounds romantic. S’that what you told ‘er, you silly git?” She shook her head, still chuckling.

“Course not.” He shrugged, looking out the sky. It was overcast, clouds on the horizon darker than the ones above. It would be raining by nightfall. He looked at her. “So?”

“So what?”

“What’s a girl look for in a bloke these days? A girl like ‘er?”

“‘ow the fuck should I know?” She snorted. “I’m a copper, and riffraff, same as you.”

_Bloody useless._ He chewed off a hangnail, spat it out onto the dash.

“Look, Brant,” she turned in her seat to face him. “If you want ‘er to take you serious, you need to a’least _act_ like you're interested in ‘er as a person.”

She searched his face. “Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”

He scoffed. “Don’t be daft.”

“Well.” She looked at him like, _What should I expect?_

“You think I should take ‘er flowers?” he asked, trying to look bored as he picked at his cuticles.

“Oh absolutely,” Falls drawled. “Take ‘em right up to ‘er door. Got ‘er address, doncha?”

He gave her a sideways look, sighing sharply through his nose.

“And God, whatever you do, Brant,” she said as she fished another chip out of her bag. “Don’t be yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Tom. Really sprung over this one, innit he?


	5. What Does The Fox Say?

He checked the time on his mobile. Six-thirty-seven.

Susan should be down any minute now.

He’d been able to bribe Tammy, the receptionist, with the lure of getting out of a traffic ticket in exchange for forwarding him Susan’s weekly schedule.

Hadn’t the slightest intention of getting her off the hook, of course. But Tammy didn’t have to know that, and wouldn’t till she was pulled over again.

He snickered to himself.

The lift binged merrily, and Susan stepped off.

_Right on time._

She was wearing a prim little blouse and slacks under her sleek grey trench coat. Her long hair was up in a high ponytail that swished side-to-side as she walked, and she’d done a foxy thing with her eyeliner that reminded him of a sixties Brigitte Bardot. She looked so pretty and put-together.

An image of her underneath him, blouse wrinkled and ripped open and her eyeliner smudged, keening his name as he pounded into her with his fingers all tangled up in her hair, flashed in his mind.

_Fuck._

His smirk morphed into an ear-to-ear grin when he saw she was carrying the flowers he’d sent her. A nice fat arrangement of roses and lilies or whatever the fuck. He didn’t know shit about flowers, but he knew about favors, and about threats, and he’d called in both to the best florist in South East London to get her those.

She gotten about five feet from the lift before she spotted him, leaning back against a pillar with the flat of one foot propped on it. It was the same one he’d leaned on as he waited for her the last time.

She stopped dead in her tracks, head falling back and arm not holding the flower vase going slack at her side. Her handbag slipped off her shoulder and hit the ground with a soft _thunk_. He heard her moan, “Mother butler...”

She glared at him, growling through gritted teeth.

He pushed off the pillar, sauntering to her with a shit-eating grin.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her forehead.

_Gotten under ‘er skin good, mate._

He stopped a few inches shy of a foot away from her. “Evening, doc.”

He looked her up and down. “S’a lovely one.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is this a joke?”

“What?” he asked innocently.

She tucked the arrangement against her hip and fished the card out of it. “Doc,” she read. “Been thinking about your tits. Sincerely, S. B.”

She flicked the card at him, it pinged him in the chest and dropped to the ground between them. She raised her eyebrow at him, _I am not amused._

His lips twitched to hide his grin as he looked her in the eye and said seriously, “Meant every word.”

“Wha-how-why?” She shrugged at him, throwing her hand in the air. “ _Why_ are you stalking me?”

_Whas all this about stalkin’? Why’s everybody think I’m stalkin’ ‘er?_

“S’not stalkin’ if you want me.”

“Oh, come _on_!” She stamped her foot. “Seriously, dude? Are you deaf?”

She made a little mouth with her hand, stuck it right between his eyes. It flapped in time with her words as she said, “I. do. not. like. you. I. am. not. go-ing. to. sleep. with. you. Go. a-way.” The hand snapped at him.

He chuckled. _She’s so fuckin’ strange._

“Didn’t come ‘ere to ask yah for a ride - for a fuck,” he clarified, when she looked confused by what he’d said.

Her eyes went wide at that, mouth open as she looked around. “Am I on Candid Camera?”

“Nancy!” she called loudly to the empty parking bay. “Is this a joke? If it is, it’s not funny!”

“I came ‘ere,” he continued, ignoring her antics, “to ask you to ‘ave dinner with me.”

“I’ve completely misdiagnosed you,” she said with mock-wonder. “You’re not sick - you’re psychotic.”

He chuckled, shrugging off the hot prickling feeling it made in his chest. “Don’t know why you’re fightin’ it so ‘ard, sweet’eart. Not that I’m complain’, mind.”

She searched his face for a beat, then nodded to herself, like she suddenly understood something. “Ok, I see what’s going on here.”

“Oh?”

She held up her hand. “Let me put this in a context you can understand.”

He crossed his arms. _This outta be good._

“I am a doctor.” She poked him in the chest. “I am your doctor. You,” she pointed at herself, “are my patient.”

“It’s like...” She looked up and to the corner. “If you were solving a crime, and I was your witness-”

_Like where this is goin’._ “Alright.”

She seemed encouraged by his comprehension. “Yes, yes. You’re a detective, solving a crime, and I’m your witness. There are rules, right?”

She waved her hand back-and-forth between them. “Rules about how we interact? What is and is not appropriate?” She nodded at him, made a _come-on_ motion. “Eh?”

What had Falls said? _Pay attention to ‘er interests_ , or some shit like that?

He quirked his eyebrow at her. “S’that some sorta fantasy you been ‘avin’ bout me, bein’ a witness on my case?” He lowered his voice. “Gettin’ interrogated by me - just the two of us, alone, in the interrogation room. Things gettin’ ‘eated-”

She jerked back a little as he leaned in. “Maybe I ‘ave to make yah confess-”

“Wha- no! I-you-” She swallowed, eyes darting from his mouth to his eyes, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. She blushed. “You are... disgusting! I would never-”

_Gottcha._

She started as his hand settled on her hip, water sloshing in the flower vase. Her tits pressed against his chest, eyes wide as tea saucers as he closed the gap between them.

“Would you like that?” he rumbled, looking into her big pretty eyes. “Tell me what you like, li’le fox. I’m dyin’ to know what interests yah.”

“God, I hate you,” she whispered, covering her eyes with her hand. “I hate you so freaking much.”

He laughed out loud at that, a harsh, gravelly sound. He took her by the wrist and wound her arm around his neck.

She looked up at him pitifully as he dipped his head and kissed her.

He felt her fingers creep under the collar of his shirt at the nape of his neck as she made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a mewl. His hands snaked under her coat and around her waist, pulling her closer as his tongue stroked into her mouth. The flowers made a soft crinkling sound as they crunched between them.

Heat pooled in his low belly; the urge to fuck pounded loud in his ears, like rain beating against a tin roof.

She was so unbelievably fucking _soft_. And these fucking noises she was making for him…

_Jaysus._

She pulled away, their lips parting with a soft _smooch_. She looked a bit punch-drunk.

There was a raspy, tattered edge to his breathing, and she heard it.

She tried to scowl as she scolded softly between pants, “Sergeant Brant... you should not be up... and you should definitely… not be doing...  this.”

“Tom.”

“What?” She blinked, forehead creasing in confusion. Her eyes lingered on his mouth.

He smirked. “Name’s Tom.”

“Ooh.” She nodded, _Sure sure_. “Tom, right. I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone, when you drop dead of over-exertion.”

“Show you over-exertion,” he murmured, thumbs rubbing the small of her back and grateful she hadn’t realized her arm was still wrapped around his neck.

“Please,” she snorted. “You couldn’t handle it.”

She tacked on, “On your best day.”

“Oh-ho! S’that right?” He grinned.

She nodded, dimples peeking out under the apples of her cheeks as she dragged him down for another kiss. This time, it was her tongue in his mouth.

_Fuck me._

He grabbed her ass with both hands, heard the vase shatter as she dropped it and worked her hand under his jacket and ran it up his chest, hooking it over his shoulder. He sucked her tongue, ground his hard-on against her soft belly.

“Mmm-nnm.”

His lungs were on fire, chest feeling like it was trying to split in two down his sternum. He was wheezing as they pulled apart, tilting his head back and sipping air rather than gulping it. Fuck if he was going to have a coughing fit _now_.

She rubbed his chest, eyes soft and anxious as she searched his face. “Please don’t asphyxiate. I would be so fired.”

He nodded, tucking his face into the crook of his elbow. He shuddered.

_Goddamnit._

“Do you need to sit-”

Something _ding-a-ling_ ed. She startled, looking around for a second before she realized what it was. “Sorry, it’s mine...”

She picked her purse up off the ground, shook the water off of it. She gave the flowers a rueful look as she dug her mobile out.

He glanced at the name on the screen, _Ramirez._

Who was Ramirez?

“Christmas on a cracker.” She hit the ignore button and looked at him, eyes soft and worried and full of guilt. “I-I have to go.”

She glanced back over her shoulder, at the lift. “Do you want to go in, have someone take a look at you?”

“Nah,” he shook his head, chest burning as he fought down a cough.

_Saved by the bell, mate._

“Are you sure?” She didn’t hesitate as she took him by the chin, tilting his face to catch the light with his eyes. She searched them closely.

“Gosh, I am _so_ sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be,” he grunted, wheezing a laugh. “‘ow’s that sayin’ go? The mind’s willin’ but the flesh is weak?”

She couldn’t help a half-smile at that as she said somewhat fondly, “You’re a few bananas short of a bunch, you know that?”

Her mobile rang again. It seemed louder this time.

“I really have to go.” She took one last look at the flowers as she said, “They were beautiful. Don’t ever do that again.”

She stepped around him, pointing at his chest. “Go _home_ , Sergeant Brant. For the love of God, please _go home_.”

He watched her all the way to her car, watched her climb in and look at him out of her driver-side window before she pulled out of her parking space and drove out of the bay. He watched until her taillights disappeared around the corner.

  
Then he doubled-over and hacked up a lung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah Brant, yah wanna pull up tough cuz yah noticed that butt is stuffed. 
> 
> Well, at least we now know Cooper doesn't find you *completely* repulsive. Just... mostly.


	6. Is There A Doctor In The House?

He sent her flowers every day for the next week. Had to shop four different florists to pull it off (he wasn’t made of favors, after all) and one of those deliveries had been some sort of bamboo-miniature-rock-forest-whatever-the-fuck from a restaurant supplier in China Town. But still, he’d managed it.

She called him after the fourth delivery, which was to her flat in Westminster.

“You know my address?” she asked.

He snorted. “What a stupid question.”

She told him to stop, that the kiss had been a huge mistake, she was sorry to have led him on, but she had absolutely no intention of seeing him again. She even went so far as to say she would refer him to another doctor in the office, and assured him she would included all of her patient notes when she handed over his file, “to insure continuity in care”.

The next day, he sent her three dozen long-stem red roses and a note that said, _Get real, doc_.

She hadn’t called again.

He was planning to drop by and see her that night when she got off, positive she’d be furious with him and thrilled at the prospect, when he got a radio in that a fight had broken out in Little Dublin.

He’d been scoping that area for over two months, hunting for the Donahue brothers, a couple of micks leading the Westies, an Irish gang who’d been terrorizing Bromley. All the usual shit - rapings, beatings, organized crime - but with a brutality and bloodlust they hadn’t seen in the South East for the last fifteen years.

Seamus and Tom Donahue were a pair of A-one psychopaths, and Brant had made it his personal vendetta to kill them both when they snuffed O’Toner, a PC straight out of police college Brant had taken under his wing. The kid was Irish, and from the same neighborhood in Brixton Brant came up from. The Donahue boys had strung him up by his neck from a streetlamp, but not before breaking all ten of his fingers and crushing his jaw.

The scanner said the fight was four miles away. Two officers were already on scene. One was down. The other wasn’t responding.

Calling all units.

He flipped his blinker, merging east onto South Bromley, towards Little Dublin. Away from Kings College Hospital and the foxy Doctor Cooper.

Thinking about her long strawberry blonde hair and big green eyes.

 

Thinking he'd pop round her flat tonight, after he'd sorted things in Bromley.

Thinking he’d cup her breasts this time when he kissed her.

That’s the last thing he really remembers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's not a PastelWonder story until there's a punch to the soft part of the gut. In poor Tom's case, literally. 
> 
> Hope there's a doctor in the house...
> 
> Your reviews make my whole life!!!


	7. Suddenly Someone Is There At The Turnstile, The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes

He dreamt.

Some of the dreams were right in his face - in living color, as they said. Dreams about fighting the Donahue brothers, about snapping Tom Donahue’s neck. Donahue’s greasy hair and fat square jaw clenched in either hand, the grinding _snap-crack_ as he twisted, the taste of metal and bile in his mouth. He could smell something burning as he sputtered and hacked.

And then nothing.

He dreamt about his mum.

Dreams that felt further away, like he was standing behind glass filmed over with grime. His mother singing an Irish lullaby as she stirred a pot of stew at the stove. Him as a young lad, tucked up against her, her fingers combing through his hair as she whispered stories about mermaids and fairies and princes to him. The sound of her crying.

Or was that Falls?

_Falls._

He tried to reach out to her, but he couldn’t move. Something was pinning him down -  dragging him under, more like - and before he could fight to the surface, he felt her hand press against his shoulder and her tears drip onto his face as she whispered, “Hush you, stupid man. Go back tah sleep.”

He dreamt about Susan.

Susan, sitting beside him and talking so softly he couldn’t understand her. Susan, kissing him under a streetlamp in the rain. Susan, sighing beneath him as he made love to her in his bed. Susan, struggling as Seamus Donahue strangled her to death, thick grubby fingers curled around her pretty neck. Him lying on the floor, gasping for breath and trying to claw and crawl his way to her before it was too late -

“Suzz- _whrar-harr-harr_!”

“Ok, easy killer.”

His wrists. Donahue was clutching his wrists.

He scratched at them, trying to pry Donahue’s fingers off him.

“No no, baby - don't do that.”

_Susan._ “Suz-”

“Shh-shh. It’s ok, Sergeant - Tom. It’s ok.”

The ground started to sink beneath him. He felt her pressing into his side, her breath on his face, warm as she whispered, “I’m right here.”

The darkness rose up and engulfed him before he could say, _Where is here?_

The next time he dreamt about her, it was so dark he could hardly make her out. He could see just a sliver, like looking through a thin slit cut out of black paper. He could hear someone breathing. It came in harsh, choppy rasps, slow and long and even, and he realized with a start that it was _him_ breathing like that.

What the fuck was beeping?

There was movement beside a shaft of light - a window. No, too small to be a proper window. A view pane in a door, maybe?

He saw her, big green eyes glowing like a cat’s in the dark. They looked so impossibly large.

“Susan.” His voice was whispery and distant, like he was trying to speak through a straw.

“Hmm?” She turned, looked at him.

Had to warn her. “Don- Donahue-”

“It’s ok, Sergeant Brant.” Her voice was low and soothing, lulling him back into darkness. “Donahue’s not here.”

“Cometah-”

“What?”

He focused, put all his energy into raising his right hand a few inches off the bed before he let it drop back onto the blanket. “Come tah bed.”

She made a soft sound halfway between a hum and a laugh. He could see her better as she came closer, not on his right, but on his left.

_Doesn’t matter. Either side’ll do._

She took his left hand in hers, checked her watch. The gold and mother of pearl face practically blinded him, it was so bright.

“Would you like to sleep a little longer, Sergeant Brant?” she asked softly.

He let his eye drift closed. “Wif you? Luv tah.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Wan- I wan-”

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“Wanna ride yah.”

“I know, sweet pea.” She patted his hand, _there-there_. “I know.”

He heard a _click_ , like the sound of a mechanical pen retracting, only louder, and Susan said, “Can you do me a favor, Sergeant Brant?”

“Anyfin’.”

“Can you count backwards from ten for me?”

“Ten.”

He fell asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *in Kristen Bell's seductive voice*
> 
> Looks like Tom lives to see another day. It's going to more important than ever that he gets his rest.
> 
> Will Susan be willing to make a deal with the Devil? Or will this dark knight ride off wounded into battle?
> 
> What's it going to be, S.?
> 
> *blushes*
> 
> Sorry - had a Gossip Girl moment. *ahem* Won't happen again.
> 
> Xoxo,  
> Pastel


	8. A Miracle of Modern Medicine, Part I

He came to sort of all at once, with a snort and a loud, “Fuck off, s’my Club!”

“Biscuit Eater strikes again, Brant?”

“Uhh, fuck me…” His head ached. Scratch that, everything ached.

 

_Bloody ‘ell._

He licked his lips - dry as sand - and tried to open his eyes. He could barely crack open the right, and the left wasn’t much better.

_So fuckin’ thirsty._

 

“Water.”

“Wassat?”

That was when he noticed Nash beside him, chair pulled up to the edge of the bed. His feet were propped up on the metal bedframe, legs crossed at the ankles. One foot jiggled rhythmically. He was wearing his suit, tie undone and hanging about his neck. His reading glasses were perched on the tip of his nose. A tattered paperback laid open and page-down on his chest. Hemingway, _A Farewell to Arms_.

_Tory ponce_ , Brant thought with fondness.

“Water,” he croaked louder.

“Ah yah, right.” Nash’s long limbs coiled in like a spring, and he leapt out of the chair. As he poured water into a paper cup, he asked, “How yah feel?”

“‘ow do I look?”

Nash snorted as he sat delicately on the edge of the bed. He pressed the rim of the cup to Brant’s lips. “Like shit.”

Brant lapped more than sipped, lips too cracked and dry to pucker, and more of it dribbled down his chin and neck than into his mouth.

“Ah,” he said when he’d finished the cup.

“Another?”

He nodded. “Three fingers this time, Guv.”

He was noticing the marks on the backs of his hands as Nash turned around with another cup of water. “Pulled your IVs out. Thrice.”

“Got it,” Brant gruffed, reaching for the cup. Nash wisely held it pinched at the rim between thumb and forefinger long enough for Brant to realize his hands were too weak to hold it. They shook in his lap as Nash tipped more water into his mouth.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Nash said as Brant gulped down the last of it. He held the paper cup between his hands, stared at it as he turned it around and around.

“Been ‘ere the whole time, ‘ave yah? Lightin’ a candle and sayin’ a prayer?” Brant closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the pillow. “‘ow romantic.”

Nash glanced at him. “Yah been here three weeks, Brant.”

“What?” Pain shot through his back and across his chest as he tried to sit up.

Nash nodded. “Been comin’ when we can. We all have. But it’s been three weeks.”

Three weeks? “Jaysus, what the fuck ‘appened?”

“What do yah remember?”

Brant chuckled, a harsh grinding sound. “Don’ gimme that copper bullshit - what the ‘ell ‘appened?”

Nash considered him for a beat, and then said, “The long version or short?”

Brant snorted, lifting and opening his arms as wide as he could. “Where ‘ave I got tah be?”

Nash settled back into his chair, one leg bent at the knee and the other stretched out long in front of him, foot _tap-tapp_ ing on the linoleum under the hospital bed. “There was a fight in Little Dublin-”

“I remember that,” Brant snapped.

“Right,” Nash shifted, picked at the end of his tie. “Was the Westies - started a fight with some skinheads at McCray’s. The PCs with beats in Bromley were first on the scene. McDonald was shot through the chest before he was halfway out of the wagon. They drug Shannon out into the street and beat him.”

“He make it?” Brant asked as Nash laced his fingers together in his lap, leg bouncing furiously.

“No.”

Brant sighed through his nose. “Go on.”

“Wasn’t on the scene meself until after it happened. What they say is that yah pulled up in your Benz and got out with your billy club - though, depending on who yah ask, it was your hurley or a tire iron -”

Brant chuckled at that. Nash flashed him a half-smile. “Anyway, they say yah took out four bangers before yah spotted Tom Donahue. He sorta, dunno, _whistled_ for yah, they say. And yah took off after him like a bat outta hell. Chased him through backyards and alleyways till he stopped and squared off with yah.”

Brant closed his eyes, tried to picture it, to remember. He couldn’t. “Then what?”

“Like I said,” Nash blew out a breath, “Dunno all the details, but what we do know is that his brother stepped out-”

Seamus. He frowned. “Sounds bout right - micks always fight in pairs.”

“Do they?” Nash said, in a tone like _Oh, how fascinating_ , and continued, “They beat the ever lovin’ shit outta yah.”

Brant scoffed, “Get real, Nancy.”

Nash gestured around at the room, _Need I say more?_

Brant grimaced. “Did I get either of ‘em?”

“Oh yah - Tom Donahue.” Nash nodded emphatically. “Snapped his neck like a chicken’s.”

_Now that I remember_.

Seamus. His dream. “And Seamus?”

“Was trying to strangle yah when officers arrived. He didn’t try to run.”

Brant blinked. “He’s in custody, then?”

“Yeah.” Nash looked like there was something he wasn’t saying.

“What is it?”

Nash stared in his lap as he rubbed his palms together; the gesture made a soft sound. He looked at Brant. “You're all he talks about.”

There was a knock at the door, and then the sound of the metal handle turning.

“Sergeant Brant?” A handsome bloke about Brant’s age poked his head inside, like he was checking if the coast was clear before he strode in, lab coat on and clipboard tucked up under his arm. He stopped at the foot of Brant’s bed.

“Well, well - look who’s awake. How are we feeling today, Sergeant Brant?”

Brant looked at Nash and tilted his head at the man. “Who the fuck is this poof?”

The man sputtered. “I say-”

Nash leaned forward, rushing to explain, “This is Doctor Fine - your doctor. He’s been looking after yah these last three weeks.”

He glanced sidelong at Fine, adding on, “And doing a fine job of it.”

Fine flashed him a dazzling smile with a mouth full of straight white teeth. The corner of his eyes crinkled warmly at Nash.

Nash returned the smile with a shy quirk of his lips.

“Aw, Jaysus,” Brant groused, scrubbing a hand over his face.

_Beard’s gotten a bit long, mate._

“You two nancies been ‘avin’ some sort of torrid love affair over my sickbed? ‘ope my insurance ain’t not payin’ for it.”

Nash blushed and cleared his throat. Fine puffed up. “That would be entirely unprofessional-”

“Yes, it would,” Brant growled, shooting a glare at Nash, who pointedly avoided eye contact. “Where’s Susan?”

“Susan?” Nash looked genuinely confused.

“You mean Doctor Cooper?” Fine’s smile returned, with a bit of a knowing edge to it. _Pot calling the kettle black,_ it said.

_Don’t try me, fucker_.

 

“Where is she?”

“She’s with a patient,” Fine told him haughtily.

“Well then flap your li’le fairy wings and go get ‘er,” Brant drawled menacingly.

Fine folded his hands in front of him, a superior tilt to his chin as he said, “I am afraid that’s not possible, Sergeant Brant.”

Ignoring the searing pain in his chest, back and side, Brant sat up and snarled, “Listen up, I’m only goin’ to say this once-”

Nash shot out of his chair like a bottle rocket. “Easy, Brant. We’ll get her.”

Fine looked like he was about to protest, but Nash wisely shoved him towards the door before he could open his mouth. Brant noticed with a smirk that the placement of Nash’s hands was rather lower than when he, say, removed a witness from a crime scene.

Fine was insisting, “I really don’t think we should pander to-” as Nash shut the door with a promised, “Five minutes,” to Brant.

Brant scratched at his stubble again. He wagered he looked pretty shocking.

_Chicks dig that rough-and-tumble look, though, right?_

He reached slowly and tucked his hands behind his head, suppressing a wince at the stretch in his pecs. If he had to guess, he’d say he’d cracked a few ribs, and maybe even his sternum.

He inhaled, felt a tearing feeling in the center of his chest. Ok, definitely his sternum.

At four-and-a-half, the door to his room opened, and there she was, pretty as the day is long in her white lab coat and soft curls.

It took his breath a bit, and for a beat or two they just looked at each other.

As she shut the door with a quiet click, he smirked and said, “‘ello, darlin’.”

She wheeled around, teeth bared and eyes shining and hands clenched into fists at her side.

“You stupid son of a bitch.” ****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Susan Cooper just curse? Like, curse-curse?
> 
> Whoa, better watch out Tom. 
> 
> Your reviews mean the world to me.


	9. A Miracle of Modern Medicine Part II

“S’cuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Her face darkened in anger, and all he could think was this is the sexiest she’d ever looked.

He felt the stretch in the tender new skin of his healing lip as he grinned. “Worried bout me, were yah, fox?”

“Don’t fucking ‘fox’ me,” she spat. “It’s Doctor Cooper to you, _Sergeant Brant_.”

_Whoa-ho, cursin’ an all._

“Beggin’ your pardon, doc-”

“Shut up!” She gripped the bed’s metal footboard with both hands, knuckles whitening as she rattled it. “Just shut the fuck up, you stupid selfish bastard. You- you-”

Eyes bright as fresh-minted ten pences, her voice dropped to a furious whisper. “I told you - I _begged_ you - to go on leave. To rest. But you _refused_ to listen. You never should have been on those streets - God, you never should have been out of bed!”

His gut twisted when he saw that she was trembling, guilt streaking through him like lightening. He untucked his hands from behind his head, sat up a little straighter, wincing at the spike of pain in his side. “Susan-”

“When they brought you in,” her voice shook, words coming out in a breathless tumble, “You were unrecognizable. Covered,” she closed her eyes, hands tightening on the railing so hard it squeaked. “Covered in your own blood and vomit and God only knows what else. We had to cut your clothes off you. Your body - what they did to you - you should have been dead. And I-”

Her breath caught in her throat, grief and horror strangling her words, and he couldn’t look at her.  

“Sorry, luv.”

“ _S_ _orry_? You’re sorry?” She laughed, a short bitter sound. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Sergeant. It doesn’t even come close. You know who’s sorry? I am. Sorry I didn’t nail your ass to the exam table, sorry I didn’t tie you to my Goddamn office chair! I’m so fucking sorry I could scream!”

_Pretty damn close to it, darlin’._

She took a deep breath, and then another. In through her nose, out through her mouth. She sniffed as she tipped her head back, dabbing carefully under her eyes with the sides of her index fingers.

_Shit._

“Susan-”

She cleared her throat and said quietly, “I wasn’t finished, Sergeant Brant.”

She walked around the foot of the bed, sat down right next to him, so close their thighs touched. Her lashes were still wet.

His heart lurched as she picked his hands up off the bed and pressed them together palm-to-palm. She covered them with hers, tips of her fingers barely coming to the second knuckles on his. She held them to her breast.

She looked him straight in the eye, and the feeling it gave him - the raw, violent longing for her - poured through him, trickling into every crack and crevice until he was saturated in it from the tip of his head to the bottom of his feet.

“What is it going to take, Sergeant Brant, to keep you off the streets?” Her mouth wobbled. She ducked her head, tip of her tongue darting out to wet her lips before she looked him in the eye again and whispered, “What do I have to do to?”

He was soaked to the bone in petrol, and she’d dropped a light on him. His whole body ignited for her, and the agony of it, the blurred line between the breaks and cuts and bruises and the stabbing desire, was sheer ecstasy.

“Yah know what I want,” he told her, feeling dark satisfaction when her breath hitched and her lashes fluttered.

“I...I-”

“Gimme the chance tah earn it.” He watched her face. “S’all I’m askin’ for.”

It wasn’t - not really. He knew it. She knew it.

_What’s it worth to yah, li’le fox?_

“You’ll complete treatment, take all of the prescribed rest? Rehabilitation?” Her eyes narrowed as she searched his face for deceit.

“I’ll keep my end.”

_And make sure you keep yours._

She exhaled, nodded. “You have yourself a deal.”

“Shake on it.”

She released his hands. He took her right one in his, shook it twice.

And then he dragged her hand to his lips and kissed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda out there, for a Pastel fic, I know. I was feeling a little Valmont. 
> 
> Hope you're down to ride.
> 
> *wink*


	10. The Best Things In Life Aren't Things

The next day, PC O’Toner’s widow came to see him.

Molly O’Toner was a slight little thing, with blonde hair and large brown eyes that reminded him of a baby calf’s. A good Irish girl, she’d loved her husband fiercely.

He’d been the one to tell her when the Donahue brothers murdered O’Toner. She fell to her knees right there in the doorway and screamed blue murder. He couldn’t really blame her.

She asked him to speak at O’Toner’s funeral - the lad’s father was departed, she explained, and his brother too stricken with grief to do else but drink and blubber in the church pew. He’d told her he wasn’t one for speeches, but she laid her hand on his arm and looked up at him with those big doe eyes. “I’d surely appreciate it, Sergeant.”

So he dragged himself up to the pulpit and said, “PC Colm O’Toner was a good man and a fine policemen. God rest ‘im.”

Later, at the gravesite, she came up and thanked him. “It were lovely, what yah said.”

She meant it, too.

Now, standing beside his hospital bed, she looked exactly the same - small and sweet and so, so sad. “Sergeant Brant, I apologize for comin’ so late. News 'adn’t reached me til just three mornin's ago, from Mallory. Day’s the first I could take off.”

He pushed himself up straighter, ignoring the ache in his ribs. “Yah shouldn’t ‘ave troubled yourself, Misses O’Toner.”

She looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her. She twisted her thin gold wedding band.

After a few beats, she asked, “Did yah kill ‘im? That man who-”

She stopped, swallowed.

He waited until she looked him in the eye, and nodded. “Aye. I did.”

“And the other?” She seemed to hold her breath.

“In custody.” As she glanced away, he added quietly, “S’only a matter a’time, luv.”

Her shoulders dropped, relief on her face as she smiled. It was a cruel twist of her lips, pretty and devoid of any warmth. “Good.”

Then she said, “Been prayin’ for yah, Sergeant. Not jus since -” She looked around the room. “But ev’r since the night yah came…”

_Someone’s prayin’ for me, aye? ‘eard it all, now._

Something warm unfurled in his chest at the thought. He tried to ignore it.

“Been prayin’ the Lord keep yah safe, and ‘ealthy, and ‘appy.” She snorted, a soft sound. “Fat lotta good it’s done yah.”

He laughed out-loud at that. “Take a lot more than prayer to save a wretch like me, Misses O’Toner.”

She smiled. This time, some of it reached her eyes. “He giveth and he taketh away, sir.”

_Sometimes ‘e takes too damn much._

“Ahmen.”

He thought about her for a long time after she left. It was for the best, he told himself, that Colm O’Toner had died young. Molly would remember him as a good and honest man, a man dedicated to saving lives and helping others and all that shit.

She wouldn’t have to watch the ravages of work and drink change her husband, make him mean, make him hateful. She wouldn’t have to beg him to talk to her, to hear her. She wouldn’t have to pack her bags and leave him in the dead of night, passed out in a pool of his own vomit on the bathroom floor.

He pictured Sally, standing in the doorway of a motel room, looking up into his face with eyes full of anger and regret. He could see over her shoulder the silhouette of the man she’d left him for lurking in the room. _I hate you, Tom._

“Knock knock,” Susan called softly from the doorway of his hospital room, smiling. She had a tray of food and little plastic cups of pills. “Time for lunch.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, brow creasing lightly as she caught sight of his face. She shut the door behind her and set his tray on the metal cart next his bed. She sat down beside him.

_Let ‘er go, mate._

“Nothin’.” He smirked, taking her hand in his. His thumb rubbed across her knuckles. “Nothin’ at all, darlin’.”

She looked at him doubtfully, then brightened. “Okey smokey, then. Let’s see.” She perused the tray, calling out options. “On today’s menu, we have… red jello, green jello, orange jello… rice pudding…”

“I’d eat better in prison,” he groused.

She gave him a long-suffering sigh and a look. “Just pick one, sweetie. Ok?”

“Fine. Puddin'.” At the quirk of her eyebrow, he offered her his most charming sneer and added, “Please.”

“Excellent choice!” she chirped, plucking up the cup and a plastic spoon. She scooped up a bit of pudding, and with a mischievous smile, sang, “Here comes the train! Choo-choo!”

She ignored his glare, bouncing the spoon along it’s way to his mouth, chanting, “Chugga-chugga chugga-chugga.”

He rolled his eyes as he took it.

She winked at him. “Good boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some (brief) flashes of humanity in Tom.
> 
> But are he and Susan doomed before they ever begin?
> 
> God, I love a good anti-hero.


	11. What's Up, Doc?

“Are you ready?” she asked, dimples peeking out under the apples of her cheeks.

He tucked his hands behind his head, watched as she carefully creased the newspaper page, pinching her fingers together and crispening the folded edge. He smirked. “Come on, then.”

“Ok, one:across. One is apart. Ten spaces.” She tapped her pen against her cheek. “Hmm.”

“Feelin’ sure of ourselves today, are we?” At her confused look, he clarified, “The pen.”

“Oh!” She looked at her black Bic ballpoint and back at him sheepishly. “I couldn’t find a pencil.”

“Raisin’ the stakes,” he gave her a wolfish grin. “S’alright by me.”

_One is apart…_

“Separation,” she chimed suddenly, lips moving as she silently spelled the word out in the boxes. “Fits!”

“Point you,” he said, revelling in her pleased look as she penned in the answer.

“Hmm... I definitely don’t know this next one.” She eyed him doubtfully, corners of her mouth turned down into a little frown. “Seven:across. Author of _A Shropshire Lad_. Seven spaces.”

_Easy._

“Housman.”

“House-man?”

“Mm-hm,” he nodded, giving her a smug half-smile. “Spelled like it sounds, ‘cept without the _E_.”

She counted under her breath. “.. _M-A-N_. Yep, it fits!”

She gave him a curious look. “What’s _A Shropshire Lad_ about?”

“S’poetry.”

“Poetry?” she said like, _Give me a break_. Her look turned incredulous. “You’ve read this book?”

He outright grinned at her skepticism. “I can read, yah know.” He added, “Real good, too.”

She folded her hands on top of the crossword puzzle, dimples even more pronounced as she fought a smile. “Ok, Shakespeare - what’s your favorite poem from _A Shropshire Lad_?”

“S’all shit, innit? S’English.”

She chuckled at that.

_Point to me._

“ _When I Was One-and-Twenty_.”

She blinked, pen paused over the puzzle. “You… what?”

“S’the name of the poem,” he drawled. “Words tah live by, that.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sure to look it up.”

He nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. “See that you do.”

“Tired?” she asked softly.

He cracked an eye open. Warmth unfurled in his chest at the way she was looking at him, big green eyes all soft with concern. “Not by ‘alf, sweet’eart. Just givin’ me peepers a rest.”

That made her giggle.

_Two points. On a roll, mate._

“You keep callin’ ‘em out, and I’ll beat you yet.”

It had become their morning arrangement. Susan came in before her shift, carrying his breakfast and AM pills and the day’s issue of The Guardian. She’d fuss over him while he ate shitty lukewarm porridge, checking his charts and reading Fine’s notes and fluffing his pillows. Then they’d read the paper together - she read the _Life & Style_ shit while he caught up on sports and the headlines.

Part of their agreement, unspoken but understood. He’d have her to himself in the mornings, when he could loll in her soft touches and gentle smiles and sarcastic quips, in exchange for his good behavior.

So far, he was sure he’d gotten the long end of the stick.

“Eight:across. Hookwinked. Five spaces.”

“Duped.” He smirked, eyes still closed.

“Very good!” He heard her pen scratching, and then, “Oow, I know this one. Thirteen: across. Cartoon spinach eater. Six spaces.”

“So spill.”

“Popeye! ...E-Y-E, yep! Point, Doctor Cooper.”

She sounded so pleased, he had to see the look on her face. Sure enough, she was beaming as she wrote.

_Pre’y as the day is long._

He wanted to pull her under the covers and lay her out beneath him, touching her and kissing her until her eyes glossed over and her legs parted for him and she said -

“Tom?”

“What?” He glanced down, tried to surreptitiously shift the sports section over the tent in his blanket. Tommy Bowe stared up at him from his lap under the headline _Ireland Turned On Speed To Doom Romania’s Insurrection_.

She blushed, avoiding his eyes as she ducked her head and read again, “Southwest English countryside. Eight spaces.”

“Somerset,” he grunted, eyes on her mouth.

_Look at me._

“Hmm, wow! It fits.” She wrote determinedly, eyes glued to the paper. “Ok! Next one. Four:down. Highly desirable.” She flinched immediately, like she realized what she’d read aloud only after the fact.

_Look at me, darlin’._

She did.

He slide his hand under hers, dragged it to his lips. He dropped a kiss on each finger, ignoring the sharp pinch when his chest swelled at the catch in her breath.

“‘ighly desirable, aye?” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, watching her face as he mentally weighed the pros and cons of tugging her into his lap. Injuries be damned. “Try: Susan.”

She let out a shaky laugh, trying to sound light as she said, “You’re such a corndog.”

“S’that right?” He turned her hand, kissed the inside of her wrist. Desire punched low in his gut as her lips parted.

“Sergeant-”

“-can kiss my arse wif your vistin’ hours. Some of us plebeians start work before ten in the mornin’, yah know-” The door burst open, and Falls came clopping in, shaking the rain out of her hair. She was wearing her uniform under a lumpy traffic-cone orange windbreaker. She swiped at the water droplets clinging to it as she called back over her shoulder to the nurse, “Oi, _you_ pipe down then, yah?”

Susan popped off the bed like a champagne cork, landing three feet away from him in a shower of newspaper leaflets.

_Goddamnit._

“Well well,” Falls grinned ear-to-ear, kicking the door closed behind her and propping a hand on her hip. “What’s all this? Playin’ a li’le _hide the thermometer_ wif the good doctor, aye Brant?”

“Falls,” he snarled, imagining all the ways he’d kill her when he was up and out of this bloody bed. “Didn’t anyone teach yah to knock?”

“Don’ be crabby!” she snapped back. “Didn’ know you’d be _entertainin’_.”

Susan was edging along the wall and looking like the fish that wriggled off the hook.

Falls cornered her with a long-armed handshake. “Would you be Susan Marie, then?”

Susan blinked, taking her hand with a tentative smile and a _What in the world?_ look at Brant. “That… that would be me.”

Brant glowered malevolently at Falls.

She shot him a haughty look, chin tilted in defiance. _Just try and stop me_.

Susan recovered with a polite smile. “I’m so sorry, you are..?”

“WPC Falls,” Falls introduced herself proudly. “Jus call me Lizzy, though.”

_Lizzy? Jaysus wept..._

Susan’s hand still in hers, Falls grinned at Brant. “She’s a lady alright. And pre’y. I like ‘er.” She turned her smile on Susan. “I like you.”

“Aw - that’s… that’s so sweet…” Susan’s smiled warmed. “You work with Sergeant Brant?”

“Whoo-oo, listen tah that! _Sergeant_ Brant.” Falls winked at him. “Bet that gets you cookin’, donnit?”

Susan balked. “Excuse me?”

“Falls,” he growled. “You anglin’ for my boot up your arse, or s’there a reason you’re ‘ere?”

“Now, now. S’that anyway to treat someone who’s brought yah sausages and coffee?” She produced a crumpled brown paper bag and a small metal thermos out of her enormous windbreaker.

His sneer turned solicitous. “Why Fallsy, yah shouldn’t ‘ave.”

“‘ere yah are then, Guv.” She dropped the bag into his lap, gave him a condescending _pat-pat_ on the cheek. “From your favorite greasy spoon in Brixton.”

She set the thermos on the metal cart beside his empty porridge bowl. “And some Devil’s brew for yah. Made it meself, so’s nice and grainy.”

He barked a laugh.

“Wha-whoa- hold your horses, buddy!” Susan had her hands on her hips, eyes darting between the bag and his face as he rolled the top down and fished out a parchment-wrapped blood sausage. “Oh my gosh- wha- does Doctor Fine know you’re eating that!?”

“Innit that the Chief Inspector’s fancyman?” Falls lit up like a Christmas tree. “Is ‘e ‘ere too?”

She looked at Susan. “Fink you could set me up wif a doctor? I’m not too picky, mind. So long as ‘e’s ‘andsome. And rich. And hung.”

Susan’s eyes darted to Brant’s lap and then up to his face. As they locked eyes, he smirked.

She blushed. “You should not be eating that.”

“Man needs a big, juicy piece a’ meat,” he said around a mouthful, pointedly eying her tits. “Gets the blood flowin’.”

“S’exactly what Nash always says,” Falls deadpanned.

Susan snort-laughed. “Ah-ha, zinger!”

Brant glared at Falls. “Don’t you ‘ave somewhere tah be? Like on your beat, doin’ your job?”

“Chht, yeah.” She waved him off. She smiled at Susan as she headed for the door. “Was nice tah meetcha, Susan Marie.”

Her voice dropped into a loud whisper as she glanced meaningfully at Brant. “You watch ‘im, now, yah ‘ear?” She gave Susan a once-over. “You’re just ‘is type.”

“Yah owe me a fiver for the food!” she called back over her shoulder on her way out.

She shut the door before he could finish, “Take it outta what you owe _me_ , Falls.”

Susan stood still a moment, looking a little shell shocked as she said, “Boy, she’s got a lotta energy.”

He snorted, picturing Falls mad-dogging a perp her second day on the force. “You ‘ave no fuckin’ idea.”

_Speakin’ of._

He closed his eyes, let his head drop back on the pillow Susan had tucked behind him this morning. He was exhausted.

He heard her say quietly, “I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Now now,” he chided lightly, cracking an eye open as she started for the door. “Don’t be unfriendly about it.”

She _hmph_ ed softly.

“Something I can do for you, Sergeant?” she asked as she gathered the newspaper pages together, folding them gently and setting them beside Falls thermos. She took the bag of sausages, opened it cautiously and sniffed.

“Ugh, good gravy!” She rolled the bag down tightly and tossed it into the waste basket beside his bed. She shook her head. “You are not eating that.”

He laughed, opening his eyes to see her disgusted expression. “S’a proper Irish breakfast, that.”

She shuddered as she pulled his blanket further up his chest and tucked it in under his sides, careful of his ribs. “Blegh.”

He reached up, pulled a curl over her shoulder and wound it around his finger. Her face was so close he make out part of his reflection in her wide green eyes.

“You comin’ back at tea-time, then, sweet’eart?” he rumbled. He never got tired of the way her lashes fluttered, sweet and oh-so-subtle, when he talked to her in that low tone.

The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips. She tried to sound casual as she said, “You betcha.”

He smirked, closing his eyes and tucking his hands behind his head. As he heard her leave he called, “Lookin’ forward to it.”

For a wild moment, he fancied he heard her murmur, “You and me both” as she closed the door.

_S’the drugs talkin’, mate._

He grinned anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gettin' a little excited there, aye, Tom? *snickers*
> 
> Will exchange good karma points for reviews.


	12. Turn Your Head And Cough

He was dozing lightly, watching highlights of the week’s hurling scrimmages with the volume turned low, when he heard her soft, “Knock knock.”

“Doc.” He gave her a lazy smile. “S’a pleasant surprise.”

She had her purse on her shoulder, trench coat folded neatly over her arm.

“Sergeant.” She closed the door behind her with a soft _click_. She glanced at the television hanging in the corner as she came to stand beside his bed, high heels _clack-clack_ ing lightly on the linoleum.

Her brow creased as she watched Cork's center half-forward charge up the field. There was a brutal interception by Kilkenny's full-back; the center half-forward connected with his shoulder and went up and over, landing on his back at the forty-five meter mark. She sucked her teeth. "Ooow."

 

“What is this?” she asked as the Cork player's coach and teammates rallied to drag him off the field.

“Hurlin’,” he told her proudly.

“Hurl-ling?”

“Aye.” He nodded. “S’a cross between ‘ockey and murder.”

 

"They don't wear padding?" she asked, flinching as Kilkenny's midfielder collided with Cork's corner-back. "Christmas on a cracker..."

 

"Nah. Spoils the blood sport."

She gave him a wry smile. “Sounds like your kinda game.”

There was an awkward silence. She shifted, looking down at her feet. He noticed there were little black patent bows on the toes of her shoes. Something about that made him smile to himself.

“Tomorrow’s the big day, huh?” she said finally.

His discharge. Was that why she was here?

The smile dropped off his face.

_There’ll no backin’ out now, darlin’._

“It is. Fancy says two more weeks rest at ‘ome and I’ll be back on the streets in jig time.”

Did he imagine it, or did she flinch when he said, _back on the streets_?

She forced a small smile. “Let’s take it slow, ok?”

_Take it slow_? What the hell was she playing at?

He felt his chest tighten in anger as he snapped, “Dunno what you mean, luv. Been followin’ Fancy’s instruction to the lettah, takin’ my pills and eatin’ this shit food, doin’ all those silly fuckin’ exercises.”

He watched her face with narrowed eyes, lips pulled taut over his teeth as he snarled, “That’s the deal we made, remember? Or did yah forget, Susan?”

She jerked, and he thought, _S’right_ , until she threw her coat onto the bed and let her purse slip off her shoulder onto the floor. Her hands balled into fists as she stamped her foot. “No, I have not _forgotten_ , Sergeant Brant.”

She pointed her finger at his chest. “I meant _you_ take it slow, you knucklehead. Call me crazy, but I seem to remember a certain someone who was prescribed antibiotics and bed rest, and decided it’d be a better idea to jump into a street fight. Or did _you_ forget?”

_Shit._

She took a step forward, lowered her voice. “You pull some James Dalton stunt like that again, Sergeant, and I swear to God-”

She let the threat hang in the air, a pretty flush fanned across her cheeks.

He watched the heavy rise and fall of her breasts for a beat, before catching her eye and rumbling, “And miss a chance to ‘ave you, li’le fox?”

He smirked as her blush deepened and she took a step back. “Not bloody likely.”

“Glad to hear it,” she huffed, stooping to snatch up her handbag and providing him a nice glance down the neck of her blouse. She whipped her coat off the bed, giving him a cool once-over. “Goodnight, Sergeant. Get some rest.”

He waited until she was at the door before he called, “Keys.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “What was that?”

“Your keys,” he growled, jutting his chin at her purse. “Take ‘em out fore you get in that parkin’ bay. You’re like a sittin’ duck lookin’ for those things.”

She snorted, _Kiss my rear end_. Then she flicked off the light and shut the door.

He watched the rest of the highlights in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really sure what purpose this chapter serves, other than it played over and over again on a continuous loop until I got it down in Drive. 
> 
> It just felt... necessary.
> 
> Anyway, homeboy's about to be released. I think criminals all over the South East are saying a collective, "Awwww maaan!"


	13. Take Only As Directed

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” Brant muttered under his breath, wincing as he pulled on his jeans. His back was still sore, muscles badly stiff from injury and rehab and lying in bed for days on-end, and bending over felt like he was stretching them to tearing.

“Everthing alright?” Nash called from the corner near the door. One arm was crossed over his middle, elbow of the other propped on it. He rubbed his thumb against the pads of his fingers as he anxiously supervised Brant getting dressed. Initially, he’d offered to help, only to be met with a, _In your wet dreams, poof_.

“Never been bettah,” Brant snorted, dragging the hospital gown over his head with a grunt. The action made his shoulders and pecs flex painfully. He clenched his jaw.

“Jesus Christ, Brant...”

“What?” He glanced down at himself, realizing with a jolt how shocking he must look. Big ugly bruises stretched across his chest, ribs and abs. Most of them were faded from deep blue-purple to a sickly shade of yellow outlined in red. Like some grotesque modern art piece,  _Artist's Impression of a Righteous Beating_.

He’d seen most of them for the first time last week, when he’d finally been able to stand up and take a piss by himself. The angry welts on his neck left by Seamus’s fingers were almost gone, but the edges of the contusions over his kidneys were still fairly dark, and there was a thick, raised scar forming on his right shoulder blade where he’d been stabbed with a knife.

At least, he thought it was a knife-wound. He couldn’t be sure. He didn’t remember.

As he worked his tee shirt on, he asked, “You got my jacket? The leather one?” He caught Nash’s nervous look. “What?”

Nash glanced at his feet, rubbing the palms of his hands together.

“No- they didn’t-” Brant scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jaysus wept.”

An image of his jacket, cut to shreds and tossed with the rest of his clothes in a rubbish pile out back, flashed in his mind. He felt a pinch, mouth thinning into a tight line as he growled, “S’great. Smashin’.”

As he shrugged on the black sweatshirt Nash brought for him, Nash attempted to distract him with a more pleasant subject. “So, the lovely Doctor Cooper come an’ say her goodbyes, then? With a passionate embrace, perhaps?”

He tried an eyebrow waggle. It was awkward.

Brant’s expression blackened. “No.”

She hadn’t come this morning.

He pictured Susan, hiding in her office somewhere while she watched the clock, waiting for him to leave. Hot anger lashed through him like a whip.

_Slippin’ the hook, is she? She can try._

He gathered up his keys and his wallet, jutting his chin at the door as he dug them into his back pocket. “Let’s get the fuck outta ‘ere.”

Nash smiled to himself as they left, slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks. He shook his head at Brant. “It’s a bizarre courtship the two of yah have. I’ll give yah that.”

“Get real,” Brant snapped, mashing _L1_ on the lift panel. He propped his hands on his hips, glancing up and down the corridors as they waited for the lift.

No sign of her.

_Where the ‘ell is she?_

“Alright, then.” Nash’s lips twitched to hide a smile, eyes dancing in amusement as he asked, “What would yah call it, then?”

Brant scowled and said nothing.

Inside the lift, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt and leaned a shoulder on the wall. His Doc Martins felt heavy on his feet as he tapped the heel of one boot against the steel toe of the other.  

Nash propped himself on the opposite wall, folding his arms. He started to say something, but another malevolent glare from Brant and he wisely decided to belt up.

“This way,” he said when they stepped off, gesturing towards the exit marked, _Visitor Parking_.

Outside, Brants pupils dilated painfully in the sunlight, and for a moment it was like snow blindness - everything was too bright-white to look at. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Christ almighty…”

“You need some sunnies, Sergeant.”

_Susan._

“See you at the car,” he heard Nash mumble at his elbow. He blinked, scanning left-to-right, as shapes and colors started to materialize out of the white-hot light.

There she was, standing on the walkway beside a large concrete container filled with tall stalks of pink and blue flowers and long, trailing ivy. Wearing a cream twin set with a pearl button at her tits and creased charcoal slacks. She’d pushed her sunglasses up into her hair; he could make out the pearl stud earrings in her ears. Coat folded over one arm, she hooked her thumb through the strap of her purse hanging on her shoulder and smiled.

_Waitin’ for me, was she?_

Warmth unfurled in his chest at the sight of her, shoulder blades drawing down his back and some of the tension loosening in his neck.

She gave him a glancing once-over as he strolled up the walk, stopping a few inches shy of a foot in front of her. She tipped her chin up, dimples peeking out under the apples of her cheeks. “The time has come, the Walrus said.”

His hands flexed in his jacket pockets as he tamped down the urge to snatch her up. “Sunnies?”

She tapped her sunglasses. “These bad boys.”

“Aah.”

She looked at Nash, who was fidgeting by the car, trying not to be obvious as he spied. She _hmph_ ed softly, smile widening.

He shook his head. “Dunno ‘ow he ever made Chief Inspector. Twitchy li’le buggah. All the stealth of an ostrich.”

She laughed. “He’s sweet.”

_Speakin’ of._

He dropped his pitched as he told her, “Missed you at breakfast.”

“Mm-hm, so I heard.” She tried to look stern, dimples more pronounced as she fought another smile. “You scared the bejeez out of Bethany, mister.”

Heard about that, did she?

He gave her an exaggerated look of bewilderment. “Bethany?”

“The nurse.”

“‘old on, ‘old on.” He held up his hand, smirking. “I’m rememberin’ it now.”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. The nurse whose head you bit off this morning? That was Bethany.”

“Don’t really give a fuck what ‘er name is, do I? She wasn’t you.”

She smacked him lightly on the bicep, smiling in spite of herself as she chided, “You’re so mean!”

He chuckled. “Yah think so, do yah?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Definitely one-hundred-percent yes.”

Taking a half-step closer, he lowered the timber of his voice and asked, “And do I scare yah, li’le fox?”

“Hmm…” Her lips curled inward as she looked up and to the corner like she was thinking. He was pleasantly surprised when her hands smoothed gently up his chest. “Gosh, Sergeant, I can’t decide.”

_Like that answer._

He snagged her by the hips, tugging her to him as he stepped up to meet her and revelling in the sensation of her soft breasts and belly colliding with him. He dipped his head and rumbled, “Do you want me to?”

There was that sweet little flutter of her lashes as her lips parted. She glanced at his mouth, fingering the zipper of his sweatshirt absently.

“Wha-I- maybe? Just a little bit. Or a lotta bit. I don’t know...” Her fingers crept up the hollow of his throat, pads stroking his Adam’s apple lightly as her eyes wandered over his face. “You’re sort of… depraved, and I don’t know why, but it makes me want to… touch…” she trailed off.

“Susan?” he murmured.

“Yep, I’m Susan.” She touched the corner of his lips, big green eyes looking up into his with dazed sheen.

“S’a nice name,” he told her, reaching up to cup her face with his hand. His thumb stroked her cheek.

“Don’t wear it out,” she whispered as he tilted her chin up and kissed her. She opened her mouth for him, tip of her tongue meeting the flat of his as he stroked into her. She moaned.

_Fuck._

He heard her purse and jacket hit the ground beside them before she gingerly wound her arms about his neck. He buried his hand in her hair - soft as rabbit - and reached around her waist, gathering her flush against him.

God, so fucking _soft_.

Her fingernails raked lightly over his scalp. He gripped a handful of her ass and squeezed.

“Mmm-nnmm.”

He let his hand slip out her hair and down her shoulder, sliding back up her waist to cup her breast-

She broke the kiss with a wet _smooch_ , leaning away as his mouth tried to follow hers and fumbling to catch his hand. “Whoa whoa whoa - timeout, timeout!”

“Timeout?” he growled, ratcheting up his grip on her. “What you mean _timeout_?”

“Sergeant Brant- _please_ \- we. are. in. public!” she hissed, looking thoroughly scandalized as she pushed lightly at his chest, still trying to backpedal out of his arms.

He winced as the heel of her hand dug into a tender spot in his pec. “Adds a bit of a thrill, donnit?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake-” she managed to wriggle out of his grip, scuttling back a good three feet as she yanked her cardigan in place. She forced a sweet smile and smoothed a hand through her curls, looking past him as she chirped, “Good morning, ladies!”

Two nurses in scrubs printed with children’s cartoons were walking arm-in-arm up the walk. One of them called back a cautious, “Mornin’, Doctor” to Susan as they passed; the other blinked owlishly, mouth open.

Susan waved brightly to them with a little, “Ah-ha hmm-hmm.”

Brant winked.

The nurses looked back over their shoulders at them until they’d found their car, giggling and whispering to each other. Nash had his arms crossed on top of his Lexus, forehead on them as he shook his head.

“Are you crazy?” she snapped.

He grinned. “Think the word you used was _psychotic_.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, looking pointedly from her handbag and coat on the ground to him. “Ahem.”

“What?”

“Would you please pick up my things and hand them to me, Sergeant Brant?”

_Is she jokin’?_

She blinked, _Well?_

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, stooping with a grunt to scoop up her things. “Bloke gets outta the ‘opsital and first thing she does is wind ‘im up and ‘ave ‘im wait on ‘er-”

He held them out to her. “‘ere you are, your Majesty.” He propped his hands on his hips when she’d taken them. “Anything else I can do for yah?”

“No, thank you.”

He scowled, snorting. “If that’ll be all, I’ll be on my way. Got a ragin’ hard-on and I ‘aven’t ‘ad a proper wank since I been in this Godforsaken place.”

She clucked her tongue, arranging her coat over her arm. “Poor baby.”

He took a step closer, giving her a salacious up-and-down look. “Less you’d like to give me a li’le _hands-on healing_ , doc?”

“I’ll pass,” she shot back, stepping wide around him as she started to head in.

He watched her march up the walkway, heart-shaped ass swaying side-to-side. “Don’t forget our deal, fox,” he called after her. “I’ll be comin’ round tah collect.”

She didn’t bother looking back, just stuck her hand up in the air and gave him a cool little wave.

Nash gave him a sidelong look as they climbed into the car. “Not a courtship, aye?”

Brant snorted, affronted. “That look like romance tah you, Nancy?”

Nash cocked his head and blinked. “Yes.” Tacking on, “Admittedly, it was rather… amorous.”

His hand paused at the ignition as he sighed wistfully, “Poor lass.”

“Come off it.”

Nash waited a beat, concentrating on backing out before he asked conversationally, “Do yah think Falls will want to be in your wedding?”

“Nash…”

“Is Susan Catholic, yah wager? _Cooper_ , s’an English name, that. She could be Protestant.”

“I’m warnin’ you, boyo-”

“Would you want a church wedding? Might be a nice bit of irony-”

“Goddamnit-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Susan, girlfriend. As a wise friend once said, "The key with Tom is to stay out of grabbing distance."
> 
> And Tom, Lawd above child, can we at least get you to 80% before you try for public sex? Or a couple stretches, maybe a warm-up lap around the block to loosen you up? No? Well, at least it was in front of the hospital. Way to plan on contingencies.
> 
> **I realize I named a chapter, "Sexual Healing", and there was no actual sex. Please don't kill me - I'll make it a two parter.**


	14. Sexual Healing, Baby, Is Good For Me Part I

Twenty-eighty-five, Page Street. Flat A Twelve. This was it.

 

He smirked. “Gottcha.”

 

He parked his Mercedes across the street from her flat and climbed out of the car. For fall in London, the morning was unseasonably dry. There was a smattering of sunlight here-and-there as patches of thin grey clouds drifted by overhead. The chill October wind had a crisp, refreshing edge to it that stung pleasantly in his mostly-healed lungs as he inhaled deeply.

 

He tucked his hands into the pockets of his new leather jacket - another slim-fit black bomber - as he trotted across the street. He craned his neck as he walked, looking up at her building and whistling low through his teeth.

 

“Swane-key,” he said to himself.

 

Edwardian, probably a conversion from one of those upper-crusty aristocratic estates this section of London was so well-known for. Made of gleaming white stone, it boasted wrought iron balconies at each of the French double-doors of the flats on the second and third stories; many of them featuring tastefully lavish flower boxes and dainty bistro sets. A long row of walk-up flats on the ground level marched down the length of the complex, each with it's own stone awning layered in intricate moldings and held up by smooth white pillars.

 

_Not in Brixton anymore, aye boyo?_

 

He felt a spike of irritation when he discovered her flat was one of the walk-ups. It was the least safest flat you could have in London. Anyone off the street could waltz right up and kick your front door in.

 

_Silly chit._

 

He noticed where her neighbors had set out a few demure stone urns filled with greenery and flowers, Susan’s front walkway was a riot of colors and foliage. She’d planted what looked like every flower and herb known to England in pottery of all shapes, sizes, and materials. They jostled for space around her doorway and created a haphazard border on either side of her short private walk. In a few of the pots, she’d tucked brightly-colored pinwheels and little ceramic figures: toadstools, small garden gnomes, frogs. At her door, on either side, hung two huge baskets on black metal chain, overflowing with the strangest vine he’d ever seen. The leaves looked like they’d been fashioned out of wax, and they were striped green on one side, and painted a deep violet on the other.

 

The front doormat was sisal with a row of three bright blue whales stamped on it, over the caption, _Whale whale whale! Look who’s here!_ The knocker was buried in the middle of a large wreath covered in gold glittered pinecones and topped with an enormous off-center orange-and-plaid bow.

 

_Jaysus. Least we know another bloke's not livin' 'ere._

 

He propped a hand on his hip and rapped his knuckles twice near the lock.

 

Almost instantaneously, there was an ominous, _Woof woof woof!_ and then a loud _BOOM_ as the door rattled on impact. The pinecone wreath rustled lightly as it shook on its hook.

 

Brant jerked a little, heart pounding in his chest and hands tingling as adrenaline rushed through him.

 

_The fuck?_

 

The barking morphed into a loud, razor-edged growl. He heard Susan’s small voice call, “Dodger! Psst psst psst. Come here, boy. Come on.”

 

The growling stopped. A few beats later, and much closer to the door this time, he heard her groan softly, “Aaah maan...”

 

The latch turned in the strike, and she cracked the door open to about the width of his hand. Oddly enough, she didn’t look pleased to see him.

 

He gave her his most charming leer. “What’s up, doc?”

 

She blinked up at him and croaked, “Sergeant Brant?”

 

“In the flesh.”

 

He’d woken her up. The thought had him half-hard already as an image of her tangled up in the sheets with him, yawning and stretching in his arms, flashed in his mind.

 

“Wha-what are you doing here?” She looked him over, taking in the sight of his leather jacket and dark street clothes on her cheerful autumn stoop. She made fists with her hands and rubbed her eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

 

His smirk widened. “Whassa matter? Not a mornin’ person, are we?”

 

She started to shut the door in his face. He caught it with a hand.

 

“‘old on, old on.” He stepped closer, noticing her hair was in a low ponytail and pulled over one shoulder, and her face was fresh and free of makeup. He glanced down, trying to see more of her.

 

“You decent?” he rumbled, pushing the door open wider. “Sure ‘ope not.”

 

She threw her arm across her chest, over her breasts and whined, “Gooo away!”

 

Over her shoulder, the growling picked back up. It made the hair on the back of Brant’s neck stand on-end.

 

“Yappy li’le lapdog yah got.” 

 

The mischievous gleam in her eye when she looked up at him made his cock twitch and his gut clench at the same time.

 

_Not a toy poodle, then._

 

She smiled, dimples pronounced under the apples of her cheeks. “Would you like to meet Dodger, Sergeant Brant?”

 

She cocked her head, whistled over her shoulder. “Dodger! Come here big boy.”

 

There was a furious _clickity-click-clack_ of nails on tile floors and the clanking of dog tags, and Brant scrambled backwards off the stoop with a muttered, “Fuckin’ ell” as a hundred-and-twenty pound black and brown shepherd nosed his way past Susan and charged out the door.

 

_Shit._

 

“Whoa whoa, easy boy!” Brant hunched and backed up a few more feet from the door, hand held out in front of him, _Stop!_

 

The dog adopted an aggressive stance in front of Susan, feet splayed wide and ears laid back, his thick black lips curled over sharp teeth in a savage snarl.

 

Brant had to suppress a jump when the dog suddenly barked, snapping his jaws.

 

“Susan-”

 

“Oh no, what’s wrong?” she asked sweetly, head tilted and expression full of mock-concern. “You’re not afraid of dogs, are you, Sergeant?”

 

Brant bit back a curse, eyes shifting from Susan to the dog as he sneered, “Me? Nah. Love ‘em.”

 

 _You, me, and my hurley,_ he thought, eyeing the dog.

 

The dog seemed to stare back at him, _Make my day._

 

Brant whistled softly, calling, “Hey boyo - easy, mate.”

 

It lunged for him.

 

“Dodger, stand!”

 

The dog went stalk-still two feet from Brant, tongue lolling out of his mouth, panting.

 

Susan made a soft kissing sound. “Come here, baby boy.”

 

Brant had taken half-a-step on impulse when he realized she was talking to Dodger. It was exactly the same tone she used with him in the hospital, all those times she'd coaxed him to take his pills and eat his lunch and keep his hands to himself as she tucked in his blankets.

 

_Un-fuckin'-believable._

 

Dodger padded up the walkway, ears perked up and tail swishing from side-to-side. Susan bent over, scratching under his chin as she praised, “Who’s Mamma’s sweet baby boy?”

 

Dodger seemed to throw Brant a self-satisfied smirk before he looked at Susan with baleful brown eyes and made a high-pitched whine in the back of his throat. His jowls were soft and relaxed, muscles in his shoulders and haunches loose as he stared adoringly into her face.

 

“Can you go inside for Momma?” she asked in a bright, high voice. Brant winced.

 

Dodger’s long bulk wiggled excitedly, and he trotted into the house, tail wagging as Susan gave him a hearty _pat-pat_ on the rump.

 

She straightened, blew her bangs out of her eyes. The door was wide open now, and he could see she was barefoot, pink painted toenails peeking out under the hem of her thick pajama pants, and wearing a blue shirt with a vintage Pepsi Cola bottle printed on the front. The tagline across her tits said, _More bounce to the ounce!_

 

_Got that right._

 

He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets as he sauntered up the walk. “‘e’s somethin’ else, innit ‘e?”

 

She heaved a melodramatic sigh. “I seem to attract alpha males with aggression issues.”

 

He snorted good-naturedly. “Seems that way, yeah.”

 

He glanced over her head into her flat. He could make out Dodger, lurking near the kitchen, large ears pricked up for a command as his sharp eyes watched Brant warily.

 

It occurred to him that he liked the idea of her having a dog like that, living alone and all.

 

Strange.

 

He reached up and caught the end of a curl lightly between his fingers, trying to catch her gaze as he dropped his pitch low and asked, “Didn’t wake you, did I, darlin’?”

 

“No,” she lied, avoiding his eyes as she slapped his hand out of her hair. “We weren’t expecting company at seven-oh-early on a Saturday morning.”

 

He braced his hand on the door frame and leaned in. “ _We_ as in: you an’ the dog?”

 

She glanced at his mouth, blinked, and then met his eyes with a haughty tilt of her chin. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

 

He kissed her, a sensual, lingering kiss that trickled warmth through him, pooling low in his gut. She mewled for him, fingers on his jaw and on his neck as she sucked his tongue.

 

He cupped her tits and could feel she had nothing on underneath her tee shirt. Images of her bare-breasted and breathless beneath him swam in his mind as he pressed her tits up and together, reveling in the softness and the sweet whimpering sound she made for him as he thumbed her nipples.

 

“Cold?” he smirked, still rubbing them lightly when they broke the kiss.

 

“Yeah,” she nodded, fingering the lapels of his jacket and biting her plump bottom lip between her teeth.

 

_Fuck._

 

He gripped her hips and pressed his hard-on into her, watching that sweet, sweet flutter of her lashes as he murmured, “Lemme come inside an’ warm you up, sweet’eart.”

 

He was expecting her to jerk away with a scandalized and breathless, “In your dreams, buddy” or maybe “No way, Jose” or possibly even “Ugh, get away from me!”

 

What he was not expecting - not in a hundred million years - was for her to wind her arms around his neck and look up at him with her big beautiful green eyes and whisper, “Ok.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought you had our sweet Iowa girl pegged, didn'cha, Brant? 
> 
> I've got news for you, sugar - this girl's got layers. You man enough to peel them off?
> 
> *Are we likin' where this is goin' people? Because, I could do dark crime drama, or we could ride on along with romantic comedy. Maybe a gut-churning, sheet rumpling mix of both? Thoughts?


	15. Sexual Healing, Baby, Is Good For Me Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the thing. Y'all know Pastel is ... graphic, in her depictions. Well...
> 
> I took a trip over to Amazon, and was reading some of the *ahem* trash that is published as "BBW/Alpha Male" literature, and may I be so bold as to say, I am not impressed. Mmm, nope.
> 
> *looks wistful* Now, there was a time when I was Susan's size, and I'm still a plush pretty pinup now. And I know some of my beautiful readers out there are of the... fuller persuasion, shall we say? I want you ladies to know something. 
> 
> You Are A Motha Fuckin' Fox
> 
> Now slim, beautiful ladies, you know I love you. And I don't hate, I congratulate. But this one... these *two* chapters go out to my thick-thighed sisters who need a strong man to get up. in. that. shit.
> 
> Let Tom Brant show you what South East London's finest thinks of big women. Because you really, really *are* beautiful, and I love you, baby.
> 
> So if a rock-hard bodied cop putting to a big, sexy doctor-fox, ain't yo thang? Skip on ahead. ;>
> 
> Love always, Pastel  
> **disclaimer** I don't know why I always make myself sound like Jada Smith at the beginning of these chapters...

It felt like all the blood in his body was rushing straight for his cock as she smiled up at him.

“Do you… want to come inside, Sergeant Brant?” she asked softly, eyes wandering over his face before meeting his. She tugged lightly at the lapels of his jacket.

_Holy. Shit._

He heard himself say over the pounding in his ears, “Thought you’d nevah ask.”

He kissed her again, hands sliding up her waist to cup and knead her tits through her shirt, and backed her into the flat.

She moaned into his mouth, covering his hands with hers and rolling them over her tits.

God, he liked a screamer, and she had all the makings.

_Fuck._

“You like that?” he asked her, voice low and full of gravel. The tip of her tongue traced the inside of her plump upper lip as she nodded. “What you want, li’le fox?”

He kissed her, soft and slow, taking her bottom lip between his and sucking lightly. She made a high-pitched sound in the back of her throat. “Yah want me to fuck you? S’that what you want?”

One hand curled into the V-neck of his sweater and tugged insistently, the other hand was at his waist, working his tee shirt out of the waistband of his jeans. “Shut… shut the door.”

He felt behind him with his foot, catching the side of her front door and swinging it closed with a loud _Bang!_

Dodger was around the kitchen bar in a flash, body tensed in a low crouch and growling menacingly. Brant jerked a little.

_Forgot about that fuckin’ dog._

“Dodge-er,” Susan called, halfway between amusement and exasperation. Her dimples peeked out under the apples of her cheeks as she said, “Momma’s ok, big boy. Go lay down.”

Dodger stood taller and cut out the growl, but he continued to eye Brant dubiously. He looked at Susan and whined low in his throat.

“Dodge,” Susan warned. “Go lay down.”

Some of the tension dropped out of Brant’s shoulders as Dodger slunk to a large dog bed beside the living room sofa. He circled around on it several times before tucking his long legs under his bulk and lying down. He huffed loudly.

“Good boy,” she praised, then quietly to Brant, like she didn’t want Dodger to hear her, she said, “I’m so sorry. He is _such_ a cockblock sometimes.”

Brant chuckled at that. She’s says the silliest fucking shit to him. “Nah, ‘e’s a good judge’a character, that one. Knows I’ve nothin’ but bad intentions for yah.”

She wound her arms around his neck and pushed up onto the balls of her feet. “But that’s what I like about you,” she murmured before she caught his mouth with hers.

He let his hands roam over her waist and hips, grabbing and jiggling handfuls of her before he found her ass and squeezed.

“Didn’t think you liked me a’tall,” he breathed when their lips pulled apart.

“Mmm, you’re right,” she panted, lashes fluttering as he kneaded her ass firmly. “I don’t.”

He snorted, then dipped his head and rumbled into her ear, “Show me your bedroom.”

She started to go slack in his arms. “Uhn, wha… what?”

Mouth right against her ear, he told her, “Show me your bedroom.”

“Bedroom?”

He smirked, choking up his grip on her and grinding his crotch against her belly. “Show me where your bed is, Susan.”

“Or I’ll bend you over this sofa in front’a your dog,” he added.

“Shit,” she whimpered. “It’s.. it’s…”

He loosened his grip on her just enough for her to turn in his arms, and took her by the waist. She was trembling slightly as she let out a shaky breath and led him to a hallway at the other side of the living room.

Her bedroom was the door on the left; it creaked lightly on its hinges as she pushed it open. Brant caught sight of Dodger, hulking at the hallway entrance, and gave the dog a gloating smile and a salute as he shut the door behind him.

The walls of the room were painted a soft grey; dim morning light filtered through the small window’s accordion paper blinds and white sheers. The overall effect reminded Brant of cool, misty pre-dawns on the streets of South London.

Standing there in her Pepsi Cola tee shirt and thick flannel pajama pants, no makeup on and hair in a ponytail, Susan Cooper looked so impossibly pretty and innocent.

And he was going to fuck her blind.

He took the hem of her tee shirt in his hands, revelling in her nervous swallow as he slowly raised it up over her breasts. She lifted her arms for him as he dragged it over her head.

“Fuck.” They were huge, gorgeous - milky white with large brown areolas and hard, pebbled nipples. He scrubbed his hands over his face, cock throbbing and heart pounding almost painfully against his ribs. “Fuck.”

She looked up at him through her lashes, smiling sweetly as she took one of his hands in hers and smoothed it over her breast. He squeezed, watching the tips of his fingers sink into the soft flesh. He stroked the other, thumbed her nipples. “Ah shit…”

She reached up and cupped the back of his head, coaxing him downward. He pressed her tits together and buried his face between him. “Fuck…”

She stroked his head. “Like that, baby?”

He nodded, mouthing the sides of her breasts and the valley between them. He lifted his head, looked around for the bed. Sitting on the edge, he tugged her to him, eye-level with her tits.

“God, Susan,” he groaned, watching her nipples move with the rise and fall of her breasts as he palmed them. His big, strong hands on her smooth pale skin. “So fuckin’ soft…”

He opened wide, took one of her big areolas in his mouth. She made a soft, “Mmm-umm” for him as he worked her nipple with his tongue.

She ran her hands over his head and over her tits, rolling and squeezing them together as he took the other nipple in his mouth, purring and whimpering and raking her fingernails lightly over his scalp.

He nuzzled between her breasts again, sucking the skin there, and grabbed handfulls of her at the soft rise of her belly beneath them, breathing, “God” and “ah shit” and “so soft” against her skin as he fondled her.

“Umm, Tom…”

He wallowed in her - her breasts pressed against the sides of his face, nose buried in her skin and mouthing the flesh of her belly. Miles and miles of creamy white softness.

“Fuck - turn round,” he growled. He leaned back just enough to see her past her breasts. Her face had a pretty flush, and she was worrying her plump bottom lip between her teeth. “Lemme see your ass.”

His hands on her waist, she turned around, glancing self-consciously over her shoulder as he drew a sharp breath through his nose. “Ah shit - fuckin’ look a’you.”

He ran his hands all over her, raked his fingers down and up and across her. “God, fuckin’ gorgeous.”

He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her pajamas,  worked them down off her hips and over her ass. She was wearing some kind of boyshort panties underneath, a soft blush color with lace at the edges. “Fuck.”

When he’d pulled her pants down the backs of her thighs, he pressed his face against her knickers, into her crack, and groaned.

He heard her soft, “Mmm-uhn” as he mouthed each cheek. He gripped the soft flesh under each one, where her cheeks met the back of her thick, dimpled thighs. He pressed them up and spread them apart, wiggling them hard enough to make her ass jiggle for him. “God- shit- bend over.”

He watched her ass swell as she bent at the waist; he could see her mound beneath her cheeks. He cupped it with one hand, rubbing the heel against her and revelling in her loud, “Oh God!”

With the other, he grabbed the band of her knickers right above her crack and pulled them up. The fabric bunched as the bottoms of her asscheeks popped out of her panties. He mouthed one, biting lightly.

He could feel through her knickers she was wet for him, and he palmed her more firmly, working his fingers under the hem of her panties and stroking the soft curls of her mound.

Her breath hitched and she mewled, “Tom.”

He slapped her ass lightly, cock twitching at the sharp _smack_ it made. “Like that?”

“Yeah.” Her hand came behind her, smoothing over the handprint rapidly fading on her cheek. “Do it again.”

He slapped the other cheek.

“Mmnn, harder.”

_Love to._

This time, he slapped her hard enough to make her ass ripple and the palm of his hand sting. She sucked her tongue and told him, “Again.”

He slapped her ass a few more times, fingers of the other hand trailing up and down her slit. She was getting wetter for him by the second.

“Whatch you want, sweet’eart?” he growled, accent thickening as he started to loose his grip on his control. “Want me tah fuck yah? S’that what yah want?”

“No.” Her hair swung back and forth across her back as she shook her head.

His gut clenched as he growled, “No?”

God so help him, if she was teasing him-

She turned a little, careful not to overbalance with her pants around her knees. She looked over her shoulder and into his eyes as she murmured, “I wanna suck you first.”

_Ah. Well. In that case._

“Yah do, do yah?” She nodded at him, blush deepening and lip between her teeth. He grinned. “You just might be the luv of my life, doc.”

She snorted a laugh and chided lightly, “What’s love got to do with it, Sergeant?”

That made him chuckle as he worked his hand out of her knickers and took her by the hips. He was careful not to tangle her feet in her pajamas as he dragged her down into his lap. She landed with a soft “Umph!”

“Pre’y li’le thing yah are,” he told her, gathering her up in his arms and squeezing as he rested his chin on her tits.

She smiled sweetly with a silly batt of her lashes and an exaggerated Southern drawl as she said, “Why thank you-oo, darlin’.”

He chuckled again.

Had he laughed while fucking a girl before? He tried to remember a time. He couldn’t.

“Silly girl.”

She kissed him, touching his jaw and stroking the side of his face with one hand, the other draped about his neck. She squeezed his shoulder through his jacket.

“How yah feelin'?” she breathed as they pulled apart.

“Good,” was his immediately and emphatic reply.

“Yeah? Not too sore?” She glanced down herself and back at him apologetically. She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m not squishing you, am I?”

That made him laugh out loud. “Don’t take this wrong, sweet’eart, but it takes a lot more than the likes a’you tah kill Tom Brant.”

Her smile took on a mischievous edge, dimples flashing, as she said, “Wanna bet?”

“Not 'ardly,” he told her, giving her ass a sharp _pat-pat_. She tilted his face up with her fingers under his chin and kissed him again, tip of her tongue stroking up the flat of his.

“Yah gonna blow me or what?” he breathed as they pulled apart.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she nodded.

He shifted her onto the bed beside him, suppressing a flinch as the muscles in his back flexed the wrong way, and stood.

She pedalled her feet out of her pajama bottoms and kicked them aside as he unbuckled his belt. His stomach tightened at the feeling of her fingers on his skin as she reached out and popped the button on his jeans. He shoved them along with his briefs down his hips.

“Whoa-” she said as his cock sprung out of his waistband, hard as a rock and head glistening with pre-cum. She looked up at him. “That’s… you are… good golly, Miss Molly.”

He smirked and flexed, making it bob for her. She took it in her hand, round eyes widening as she strained to touch her middle finger to her thumb.

“Good gravy,” she breathed, wetting her lips generously. She gently tugged him closer; he could feel the puff of air on the head of his cock a she whispered, “Let’s give this a whirl.”

She took as much of him in as she could, which was only about a third of the way down his shaft. She bobbed a few times, a shallow back-and-forth slide, before she hollowed her cheeks and drew all the back back to the head.

“Fuck.”

She took him in again, this time a little deeper, letting spit dribble out of her mouth and down his shaft to use as lubricant. She pumped her hand up and down his length in time with the push-pull of her mouth, tugging his foreskin back over the head of his cock to slide along with her.

He stroked the fringe out of her eyes, watching her plump lips stretch around his cock each time she took him in. “Fuck me.”

She was taking a little more of him each time, and at the same exact moment he felt the head butt against the back of her throat, she gagged.

He caught her by a handful of hair and dragged her back. “‘old on, ‘old on. Don’t go chokin’ yourself, luv.”

She looked up at him, cheeks flushed and lips swollen and eyes watering in her pretty face, with his hand fisted in her hair.

“Jaysus wept. Look’a you, sweet’eart.”

She coughed lightly, wincing. “Sorry bout that… ahem… got a little carried away…” She coughed again.

“Nah, don’t be.” He smoothed his hand over her head, watching her closely.

She smiled softly. “Try gain?”

He nodded, the picture of congeniality as he smirked, “Yeah, sure.”

She hummed a laugh around him as she took him in again.

“Feels nice,” he told her low.

She hummed again on the way down, hollowing her cheeks when she came back up.

“Spit on it.”

She nodded. It popped out of her mouth with a wet sound as she circled the head with the flat of her tongue and then spit a generous amount on it.

He inhaled sharply through his nose.

She got a nice little rhythm going, able to take him almost halfway after she’d warmed up, one hand pumping what wouldn’t fit in her mouth and the other cupping and rolling his balls.

He pulled out her hairband and gathered up her hair, letting it sift and slip through his fingers as he watched her suck him off. His hips followed the push-pull of her mouth, the slick wet sounds of his cock in her mouth and the sound of him breathing harshly through his nose filled the room.

As he felt his gut tense and his balls start to draw up, he tightened his hand in her hair and tugged lightly.

“What?” she panted when he drew back out of her mouth, brow creased in confusion as her hand still pumped him lightly.

“Lie down,” he told her.

 ****  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, it's a two parter, because Tom Brant isn't done by half, and I need a freaking nap after writing this.
> 
> Also, Mr. Statham, if by some incredibly bizarre and unfortunate twist of fate, you end up reading this, I am so so sorry. And... you are very welcome ;> Shh, we won't tell your girlfriend.


	16. Sexual Healing, Baby, Is Good For Me Part III

He worked his jacket off, wincing a bit as the newly-healed knife wound in his shoulderblade flexed.

 

“Hey - you ok there, killer?” she asked, watching him drag his pullover and tee shirt over his head.

 

As he balled them up and tossed them aside, he took in the sight of her. Foxy little Doctor Cooper laid out on her bed, panting and wanton and anxious for him. For him.

 

“Never bettah.”

 

She rubbed her hand along the duvet beside her. “Come here, baby.”

 

He opted to crawl up between her legs instead, nudging them apart, until he was braced above her with his hands on the bed on either side of her waist. “Like it when you call me that.”

 

She looked up at him through her lashes as she reached up and traced the seam of his lips with her fingertip. “Do you want to be my baby?” she asked softly.

 

He nipped at her finger lightly and smirked. “Yah know I do.”

 

She draped an arm about his neck, stroked the other hand down his chest, fingernails raking lightly through his chest hair.

 

“Feels nice,” he told her as he reached down and mimicked the move, trailing his thick fingers up and down the length of her slit, parting her gently. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her clit.

 

“Mmnn, so does that.”

 

“Just nice?” he asked in a low pitch, shifting his weight to one side so he could talk directly into her ear. “Can I make it better for yah, sweet’eart?”

 

He couldn’t see what he was doing over her belly, but he could feel he was close to the dip in her clit. Her breath caught in her throat, hands clapping onto his biceps. He flexed for her.

 

“Tell me what yah want, Susan.” He was right against her ear as he rumbled, “I’ll give yah everythin’ yah want.”

 

“Lower… go lower...” she whimpered, eyelids fluttering closed.

 

He let his thumb slip just a bit lower, careful not to nick her with his nail as he applied a little more pressure to the back-and-forth, up-and-down motion. “Like that?”

 

Her mouth fell open, hips pressing back into the mattress as she nodded. “Yeah...”

 

Still working her clit, he circled a finger around her entrance. She bit her lip.

 

“Yah want it?”

 

Another frantic nod. “Yes - oh God - shit...”

 

He kissed her neck, hot open-mouthed kisses from just below her ear to where her neck and shoulder met.

 

“Mmm-uhn… Tom…”

 

“Whatcha want?” he breathed into her ear. He worked in a second finger. “Want more?”

 

She sucked her tongue, losing herself to his touch as she let go of his biceps and fondled her breasts. “Yeah… Give it to me, baby…”

 

_Fuck._

 

He pumped his fingers faster inside her, hooking and pressing them into the roof of her channel, looking for -

 

“Oh-ho-ho God!”

 

He smirked.

 

_Screamer. Knew it._

 

She was starting to rock back against his hand, hips rolling as her climax built. He sucked her neck, nipped at the rise of her breasts, working her harder, faster.

 

“Uhhn… yes… oh, fuck… Tom!”

 

“Come on, Susan,” he growled, watching the way her face changed when he put a little snarl in his voice.

 

Ecstasy.

 

He rubbed his cock against her thigh, the head butting against her soft belly. He felt the tremble building under his hand as he told her, “Come for me so I can fuck your hot little cunt.”

 

“Shit- Tahm!”

 

Her head tipped back, body shuddering beneath his and breath coming in short gasps as she came. She clenched around him as he milked her climax, trying to gentle his touch as she came down from the high.

 

“Ok, ok - too much…” she whimpered, eyes still closed as she tried to catch his wrist.

 

He kissed her deeply as he withdrew, stroking her belly and thighs. She was shaking violently.

 

“Alright?” he asked, pulling back to look at her. Her face and chest were flushed pink, teeth chattering lightly as she pressed a trembling hand to his chest.

 

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It’s just- an overproduction of- epinephrine-” She gritted her teeth, eyes squeezing shut as a tremor shook her from head-to-toe. “Nervous system is- ov-over stimulated-”

 

“Ah well,” he smirked as he stroked a hand over her breast, palming it. “Got yah all ‘ot an’ bothered, then?”

 

He felt the blood pounding in his cock, the raw need stretched taut across his muscles and up his spine. He brushed the fringe out of her eyes. “Now yah know ‘ow it feels, li’le fox.”

 

She huffed a laugh, touching her shaking fingers to his jaw.

 

He dipped his head, nosing one of her breasts as he gathered her up in his arms. He took her nipple in his mouth, revelling in the delicious sensation of her body quaking beneath his and her soft mewling whimpers.

 

God, she made him feel like a degenerate lech. He fucking loved it.  

 

“Tom- baby, please… I need…I-I-”

 

He kissed her again, looked into her eyes as he told her darkly, “I know what you need.”

 

He rolled off the bed, hunted for his jeans.

 

“Wait, Tom…” She touched herself, cupping her breasts, stroking her hands down her belly, fingering her slit. “Tom…”

 

“You’ll get it inna minute.” He couldn’t work his wallet out of his back pocket fast enough.

 

_Take this fuckin’ thing out first next time -_

 

“Tahm!”

 

“Inna minute!” he barked, wrenching it free with a, “For fuck’s sake” and fishing out the condom he’d tucked into the bill fold out.

 

He climbed back onto the bed and settled between her legs, pushing her thighs wide apart.

 

“Tom,” she stretched to run her fingers down his abs as he ripped the foil open with his teeth. “Want you so bad, baby. Want you inside me - God-”

 

“You ‘ave no idea, sweet’eart,” he growled as he rubbed the head of his cock against her slit.

 

When he started to push past the tight ring of muscles at her entrance, she tensed.

 

Jesus, she was tight.

 

“Relax.”

 

She nodded, eyes clamped shut and panting hard. “Yeah, I know.”

 

He pushed in another inch or two. The heels of her hands dug into his shoulders as she pushed back, cunt tightening around him like a fist. The edges of his vision started to blur, heart pounding in his ears and she felt so fucking _good_.

 

_Shit._

 

He stayed as still as he could, fighting against the instinct to just start hammering as he coaxed her, “Gotta relax for me, darlin’.”

 

“I know,” she snapped. She shook her head and whispered, “I’m trying. It hurts.”

 

He looked down between them, and at her legs bent slightly at the knee on either side of him. “Got it.”

 

He caught her under the knees, grabbing the soft flesh of the back of her thighs and hefting her legs up with a grunt. Her feet came off the bed, breasts and belly shifting forward as he pressed her legs apart and towards the headboard.

 

“Oh my God-”

 

“I gottcha.” He felt her unclench around him as her hips lifted up off the bed and let himself sink into her slowly, gritting his teeth at the feeling of her hot, wet cunt pulling him in.

 

“Fuck me.”

 

“Uhhnn Tom!”

 

Her knees were nearly level with her chest as he bottomed out, legs as wide apart as he could get them. Her tits were up under her chin, belly shifted forward and he could see where his cock was buried inside her, stretching her.

 

She looked up and past him, at her feet dangling near his shoulders.

 

“Holy shit...” she panted, lips parted in disbelief as her wide eyes wandered down his face, chest, and abs, to where his pelvis was grinding against hers. "You are unreal."

 

“This?” He ignored the pinch in his lower back, trying to sound casual as he huffed, “S’nothin’. Jus gettin’ started.”

 

He hefted her calves onto his shoulders and hooked his arms around her thighs, his knees close to her ass for leverage as he drew back and sank back in.

 

“Uhn-nuh…”

 

“S’alright?” He watched her face closely as she nodded frantically.

 

“Good- great- come on.” She smoothed her hands up her belly and breasts, tangling them in her hair. “Come on, baby.”

 

He picked a fast, shallow pace, balls slapping against her ass, watching her tits bounce and her belly ripple in time with his thrusts.

 

“So fuckin’ sexy,” he told her, kneading her thighs.

 

Her breasts were right up under her chin as she cupped and fondled them. “Oh God, Tom… feels so good, baby… you’re so big… shit-”

 

He put a little more power behind his thrusts, seeing her body start to jerk back and forth under his. He watched his cock pump in and out of her, condom slick in her juices, making hot, wet sounds.

 

_Fuck._

 

“Touch yourself,” he told her as he angled up for her sweet spot, because he wanted to watch and because he wasn’t going to last long - he could feel it in the way his gut was tensing and the muscles in his back and arms were starting to shake.

 

She tucked an arm under her belly, holding it out of the way as she reached and found her clit. She touched herself, eyes closed and brow furrowed and lip between her teeth. “Fuck… oh God-”

 

Her breath hitched and her head tipped back against the pillow when he hit it _right there_.

 

“Oh God! Oh God oh God oh God-”

 

He ratcheted up his grip on her thighs and doubled his efforts, pounding into her as he growled, “Tom.”

 

Her eyelids fluttered open, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “Wha-what?”

 

“Name’s Tom.” He drew back and slammed in, hard enough to make the headboard bounce against the wall and to make her shriek, “Shit- Tom!”

 

He smirked, snarling, “That’a girl.”

 

The bed springs creaked loudly, bed frame jerking back-and-forth as the headboard beat against the wall and he beat into her. She was shrieking and shouting his name at the top of her lungs, fingers rubbing her clit furiously as her second orgasm started to build.

 

He gasped for breath, back and thighs burning, biceps shaking, sweat dripping off of him. He was right on the razor edge, his horizon starting to tilt up under him, snorting and snarling as he fought to hold it together.

 

_Come one come on come on come on-_

 

“Come on Susan, Goddamnit. Come for me, fuckin’ come for me, Susan.”

 

“I’m coming - oh God - don’t stop! Don’t stop don’t - shit!” A shudder snapped through her like lightening as she came, voice breaking into a high keen.

 

_Goal._

 

He dropped her legs, shifting forward to press his face into her neck as he braced his hands by her head and pounded into her for all he was worth. Four more strokes and he came rasping something unintelligible into her hair, hands fisting and twisting in the duvet, jaw clenched so tight he heard it creak.

 

Heart hammering in his chest, he felt more than heard her whisper to him as he shuddered.

 

Her hands stroking over his head, his shoulders, his back.

 

Her lips on his face, pressing soft kisses and kitten licks to his mouth and jaw.

 

Telling him softly, “So good, baby”.

 

He wanted to say something witty, something cavalier. But he was too exhausted, and she was so soft and warm.

 

He doesn’t remember what he said to her, what he murmured into her hair, but whatever it was made her smile up at him sweetly before she worked herself out from under him and onto her side, facing away from him.

 

He didn’t overthink it as he pressed himself up against her, reaching over her and threading his fingers through hers before he tucked their hands under her waist. He nudged his leg between hers and buried his nose into her hair at the nape of her neck.

 

They slept that way through the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I pulled a fast one and renamed some of the chapters. One of the joys of posting piecemeal. No worries, nothing's changed, and this is the latest in Sexual Healing, Baby, Is Good For Me.
> 
> Where the *heck* do I come up with these redonkulous titles? Jaysus wept...


	17. Maneater

The dog woke him up, whining loudly outside her bedroom door.

 

Brant raised his head from Susan’s hair and turned it away from her, not wanting to shout in her ear as he yelled, “Belt up!”

 

Dodger answered him with an affronted _Woof woof woof!_

 

Susan groaned into her pillow, not bothering to lift her head as she grumbled, “He’s not going to take No for an answer.” 

 

She looked back at Brant over her shoulder, pawing her fringe out of her eyes. “Something else you two knuckleheads have in common.”

 

He smirked, using his arm around her waist to roll her onto her back. He pinned her beneath his bulk, wedging his leg between hers. Stroking the hair back from her face, he soaked in her bleary-eyed frown before he kissed her.

 

“Mmm-mmn.”

 

Dodger’s bark escalated to an enraged howl.

 

Susan pushed at Brant’s shoulders, trying to wiggle out from under him as their lips parted with a soft smooch. “Tom, baby, move.”

 

He dipped his head, voice low and gravelly as he assured her, “In a minute” before he kissed her neck. She clucked her tongue in frustration, fingers curling reflexively around his shoulders. Her nails bit lightly into his skin as he mouthed the base of her throat.

 

“Tom...” she breathed, tilting her head out of the way for him.

 

There was a sharp _scratch-scratch_ ; the door rattled warningly on its hinges.

 

“Shit. Tom, baby, move.” She dug the heels of her hands into him and shoved when he didn’t budge. “Tom - off! Now!”

 

“Alright, alright. Take it easy, now,” he groused, lips twitching to hide his grin as he untangled his legs from hers and rolled away. “Where’s the fuckin’ fire, sweet’eart?”

 

“I have neighbors, and a deposit,” she huffed, wincing as she stood. “Dodger, quiet. Momma’s coming.”

 

The howling tapered off to a pulsing, high-pitched whine. Brant could hear Dodger’s intermittent sniffing, the dark shadow of his snout moving from side-to-side under the threshold of the door as he scented for her.

 

“‘e snipped?” Brant asked, settling back against the headboard and arranging the covers around himself as she gingerly stepped into her pajama bottoms.

 

She paused, one foot hovering over the hole of her pant leg, to give him a puzzled look. “Snipped?”

 

He held two fingers over the duvet, above his crotch, and made a snip-snip motion.

 

“Oh! Neutered - no.” She snapped the elastic band over her hips and bent to swipe her tee shirt off the floor. “No, Dodger’s not snipped.”

 

She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned the shirt over in her hands as she tried to distinguish the front from the back. “His last owner wanted him…” She tugged the shirt over her head as she searched for the right word. “ _Aggressive_. When I got him, I thought about it, but…” She looked guilty as she worked her arms through the arm holes. “I just couldn’t do that to him.”

 

There was a loud _Bang!_ as Dodger suddenly threw himself against the bedroom door and growled.

 

“Ok, Dodger! I’m coming! Jesus Louisus.” She sighed at Brant. “Not one of my shining decision-making moments.”

 

He smirked, tucking his hands behind his head. “We still talkin’ bout the dog?”

 

She covered her face with her hands, smothering a growl. She took a deep breath and said to herself, “One at a time” before she opened the door.

 

He saw Dodger’s elated leap; the dog’s head nearly collided with the hallway’s overhead lamp.

 

Something about it struck Brant - he felt he’d seen it somewhere before.

 

Dodger’s massive body crouched low and wriggled like a pup’s as Susan sang brightly, “Hey, you - what’s your major malfunction, numbnuts? Huh? Who you whining at, baby boy?”

 

She pointed her finger at Brant and told him sternly, “You - stay. Good boy.”

 

He _woof_ ed, calling after her, “Do I get a trick if I lick yah?”

 

He heard her snort as the front door opened and closed. He stretched, feeling a pleasant pull in his mostly-healed wounds, as well as a fresh twinge in his lower back. He grinned.

 

He decided to have a bit of a poke-around while she was out, pulling on his briefs before he started rifling through her things. Her bureau contents were fairly pedestrian, as were her bedside table’s - clothes, some costume jewelry, a few paperbacks (police procedurals, the classics, he noted with some surprise), a portable CD player that had to be at least ten years old. She had a small stash of condoms and a bottle of personal lubricant in the top drawer of her nightstand. The label on the bottle said, _Warming. For Her Pleasure._

 

He snorted.

 

There were a few pieces of art on the wall, cheap prints mostly, and some photographs on top of her dresser. One of Dodger sitting by himself on a lawn, another of her kneeling beside him, her arms around his neck and the both of them beaming at the camera, and one of a man in uniform. US Army, it looked like.

 

He picked it up off the dresser, removed the backing to look for a date or a name. Neither.

 

He was about to continue his look-about in living room when he heard a buzzing by her nightstand. Her mobile was vibrating on its charger beside an old fashioned black enamel alarm clock.

 

He read the caller ID. _Ramirez._

 

The bloke who’d called her before. In the garage.

 

He propped a hand on his hip, rubbed the fingers of the other in the seam of his lips and over his chin.

 

He answered it. “Brant.”

 

Nothing. The other bloke hung up.

 

He was debating whether or not to redial when he heard the front door open. He glanced at the photograph of the man in uniform as the _clink_ of Dodger’s tags drew closer. The man was about Brant’s age, Caucasian, obviously American.

 

Could he be Ramirez?

 

“Hey,” she called softly from the bedroom doorway. A thin sheet of water droplets clung to her hair and the along tops of her nose and cheeks. Too fine to be rain; mist maybe, or a drizzle. She was flushed with cold.

 

_Beautiful._

 

Dodger shook himself next to her, large ears making a soft slapping sound as they flapped against his head and her thigh.

 

She smiled warmly at Brant. “What’s up, buttercup?”

 

_Buttercup?_

 

He held up her mobile, kept it casual as he asked her, “Who’s Ramirez?”

 

She blinked, brow creasing in confusion as her eyes shifted from his face to her mobile and back. “Ramirez?”

 

He shook it like a rattle - _don’t play stupid with me, darlin’_ \- voice even as he repeated, “Ramirez. He called. Just now.”

 

He gave her an expectant look, hand still on his hip, _Let’s have it_.

 

“ _He_ called...?” Her face fell, and in that split second his gut clenched and his heart skipped a beat. Then she whined, “Aaaah maaan. Misses Ramirez called? Son of a bee sting...”

 

“Misses? S’a woman, is it?” He held out her mobile as she made a give-it-here motion.

 

“Mm-hm,” she nodded, fingertips tip-tapping across the touchscreen. “My neighbor.”

 

She cocked her head at the dog as she explained, “She’s very particular about noise.”

 

Her head suddenly shot up, fingers frozen mid-stroke. She looked past him, eyes wide with dread as they darted from the rumpled sheets and mattress lying crooked on its box-spring to the wall behind him. She covered her eyes with her hand. “Mother butler.”

 

She looked at him between her fingers. “Do you think she heard..?”

 

He threw his head back and laughed, tension melting out of his shoulders as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Think the whole bloody block ‘eard yah.”

 

She tossed her mobile on the bed and flopped down face-first beside it. He heard her muffled, “Great.”

 

She rolled onto her side as he stretched out beside her, bending her arm at the elbow and cradling her cheek in her hand. He mirrored her, propping himself up with his temple on his fist. He reached out, plucked a curl off her shoulder. It was still damp as he wound it around his finger.

 

“Welp, that’s it,” she sighed. “There’s only one viable solution: I have to move.” She shrugged her shoulder, _What’s a girl to do?_

 

He let the curl unwind slowly, savoring the sensation of her soft hair slipping between his fingers.

 

Would she let him ride her again so soon, he wondered, picturing how she’d looked as he pounded into her.

 

“Nah.” He wound another bit of curl. “Don’t worry. I’ll sort it.”

 

She jerked. “Oh, no. No no no-”

 

He grinned, letting the curl slide slowly off his finger again before he wrapped his arm around her waist, dragging her closer. “What? Yah don’t want my ‘elp?”

 

She shook her head emphatically. “Uh-uh. Nope. I want Misses Ramirez to keep the use of both her legs.” She gave his bicep a light _pat-pat_. “Thank you for offering.”

 

His eyes wandered over her pretty face, settling on her mouth. “Well, if you change your mind…”

 

She tipped her chin up to meet his kiss, making a soft moaning sound for him as his tongue slipped into her mouth. She stroked her hand over his chest, raking her fingernails lightly through his chest hair. He massaged firm circles into her back, pressing her against him.

 

“You’re pretty good at that,” she breathed as they pulled apart.

 

He grinned, having a flashback to the division’s mandatory _sensitivity seminar_. What was that phrase the instructor - a great poof of a man - had emphasized when receiving one’s performance evaluation?

 

 _S'right._ “Thank you for your feedback.”

 

She giggled. “You’re very welcome. I’ll be referring you to friends and family.”

 

 _Cheeky minx_.

 

His grin widened. “Like the sound’a that.”

 

She glanced up at him through her lashes, smile taking on a slightly self-conscious edge as she hedged, “Which reminds me-”

 

“Yeah?” _What you want, fox?_

 

She concentrated on walking her fingers up the center of his chest. “It’s just - earlier it sounded like - you thought Misses Ramirez was a… _Mister_ Ramirez… and you seemed kind of-”

 

She glanced at him again, “... jealous?”

 

Was he imagining it, or was there a hopeful lilt to her question?

 

He didn’t notice the way his arm tightened around her waist as he sniffed. “Might’a been.”

 

She tried to hide a smug smile as she tugged gently at his tufts of chest hair. “How come?”

 

_‘ow come? What kinda silly fuckin’ question is that?_

 

He suppressed a grimace at the vivid memory of answering his house phone and hearing a man’s surprised voice ask, _Is Sally there?_

 

“Dunno a bloke who likes another dog sniffin’ round ‘is yard,” he replied tersely.

 

“Ain’t that right, boyo?” he called back over his shoulder at Dodger.

 

The dog lifted his head off the carpet and growled at Brant.

 

Brant quirked his eyebrow at Susan. “See? ‘e gets it.”

 

“Your yard, huh?” She searched his face. Something in hers made him uneasy. It read like doubt - or worse - apprehension. But before he could press it, she gave him a tentative smile. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about on that front.”

 

She _hmph_ ed, more humor in her voice as she shook her head and said, “No one would dare.”

 

That piqued his interest. “Oh yeah?”

 

She nodded emphatically. “Yes indeed-y. I haven’t had a single patient come-on to me in a month.” She thought about it. “Scratch that - almost two months.”

 

She gave him a sly look. “And considering my patient pool, that’s no small feat, Sergeant.”

 

He smirked, the swagger back in his voice as he said, “Don’t know what you’re implyin’, doc.”

 

“I’m a marked woman,” she drew an _X_ over her breast. “Get too close and you’ll get the business end of Tom Brant’s hurley.”

 

That made him grin out-right.  _Where’d she hear about that?_

 

He used his weight to roll her onto her back, nudging a knee between hers as he scoffed. “You make me sound like a real nasty brute when yah talk like that.”

 

He squeezed her hips, mouth close to hers as he murmured, “You’ll ‘urt a bloke’s feelin’s if you’re not careful.”

 

“Pssh-ah!” She rolled her eyes, then with a mischievous little smile said, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.”

 

He chuckled at that, hands sliding up to cup her breasts. “Whassat? Give you a fuck? S’that what you’re askin’? Bit straightforward for you, innit Susan?”

 

She drew in a sharp breath, pushing lightly against his shoulders and grinning around mock-indignation as she cried, “Wha- what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

Adopting his best American accent, he tried to make his voice sound girlie as he cooed, “Oh, Sergeant Brant - I cannot go out with you. It’s too unprofessional, and you are so _depraved_ -”

 

“I do _not_ sound like that!”

 

“Meanwhile,” he growled, pinning her easily to the mattress as she tried to wriggle out from under him, “you’ve been comin’ back ‘ere and thinkin’ bout me while you touch yourself, screamin’ my name when yah come - ol’ Misses Ramirez is probably sick’a me already-”

 

“Oh in your dreams, buddy,” she snapped, pretending to struggle now as she blushed a deep pink. “You were the one beating off into your bedpan and scaring the poor candy stripers to death-”

 

He reveled in the soft pant in her voice and the feeling of her big, plush body squirming beneath his as he crowed, “Least I’ll cop to it!”

 

“You know what?” she cried. “You _are_ a nasty brute!”

 

“S’that so?” he breathed, hard as a rock now and panting. He ground his crotch against hers, relishing the way her eyelids fluttered closed and her lips parted as she whimpered, “Uh-nuh…”

 

“And do yah like that?” He rocked up into her harder, feeling her breasts and belly shift up his body. “A big nasty brute - doin’ all the filthy, nasty things to yah you won’t ask for?” He tried to kiss her.

 

“Get off of me!” she shrieked, tipping her head back and twisting her face away from his with a smirk.

 

He laughed, and then there was a terrific booming sound. Like thunder - only inside her flat.

 

All the colored drained out of her face. “Get off the bed now!”

 

His heart leap into his throat, internal alarm bell blaring, as his body moved on instinct and he shoved himself up off of her.

 

The next second, Dodger landed right where Brant had been, snarling furiously as he crouched low across Susan, lips curled so far over his teeth Brant could see his gums. His bark was deafening - it rang in Brant’s ears and sent shock waves of adrenaline down his spine, straight into his toes.

 

_Susan-_

 

“Susan!” Brant took half-a-step towards the bed. Dodger lunged at him, jaws snapping savagely. Brant jerked back, hands curling to fists. “Susan - move!”

 

Dodger crouched over her again, growling so loudly Brant barely heard Susan as she warned him quietly, “Don’t move.”

 

Brant could see the hackles standing up along Dodger’s back. An image of a snarling black-and-tan shepherd racing through a warehouse - was it in South End? - and the sounds of a suspect screaming, _Help! Somebody help me, please!_ streaked across his mind. Something cold slipped through him.

 

 _Susan._ His heart hammered against his ribcage. “Susan, get away from that thing now!”

 

Dodger barked and snapped again.

 

Brant held out his hands. “Take it easy, mate.” _Don’t hurt the girl._

 

He glanced at the door. If he ran for it, he was sure the dog would follow, and if Brant could trap him in the narrow hallway, he might be able to get an arm around Dodger's neck.

 

And the dog wouldn’t be near Susan.

 

He glanced down at his briefs.  _Should’a put on your fuckin’ pants, boyo._

 

Susan was combing her fingers through Dodger’s mane, making soft kissing and clicking sounds and saying firmly, calmly, “Hey Dodger-Dodger. Who’s Momma’s pretty boy? Look at Momma, sweet pea. Come on.”

 

Brant tried to control the shaking in his hands. Visions of the dog whipping his head around and tearing Susan’s throat out tipped and whirled like a gruesome kaleidoscope in his mind’s eye. “Susan, listen - I’m goin’ to run out the door and-”

 

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Her tone rooted him to the floor. “Shut up and stay right there.”

 

She worked herself up onto an elbow. Dodger was crouched over her belly; a long line of drool trailed from one corner of his mouth towards the duvet.

 

She reached up and tickled the soft black flesh of his jowls. “Hey Dodger-Dodger. Come on, look at Momma. What’s Momma doing, Dodge?”

 

“Are you fuckin’ outta your mind?” Brant hissed. He scrubbed his hands over his head, feeling like the fear was going to strangle him. That bloody dog was going to snap her fingers off, and there was no way he could get there in time to stop it.

 

“Shh-shh-shh.” Susan tugged the skin lightly. “Dodge. Here boy.”

 

Dodger snuffled and shook his head, trying to shake off Susan’s fingers. He broke eye contact with Brant.

 

Susan made a high-pitched whistle, then leaned up and puffed a breath of air straight into Dodger’s ear.

 

Brant’s heart stopped as Dodger swiveled his head and looked at Susan with an expression full of annoyance, _What?_

 

“Hey you, big boy,” she cooed, smiling. She stroked her fingers lightly down his snout. “Momma’s ok, Dodger.” She made a soft kissing sound. “Momma’s ok. We were just playing.”

 

Dodger whined low in his throat. He threw look at Brant and growled again.

 

Susan reached up and rubbed his ears, turning his head back towards her and telling him sternly, “Don’t do that, Dodge.”

 

Dodger eyed her consideringly her for a beat, then lapped at her face in long, wet licks.

 

“Jaysus wept.” Brant’s knees buckled with relief as Susan giggled, scrunching her shoulder to her ear and pleading, “Ew, Dodge - not my ear - ugh!”

 

It was like Brant wasn’t in the room anymore as Dodger sniffed her from the top of her head down to her knees, making a loud snuffling sound. His tail wagged.

 

_Un-fuckin’-believable._

 

Susan beamed at him. “What’d I tell yah? Not a scratch on the Momma.” She clicked her tongue again, and in a bright, high voice, asked, “Do you want a treat?”

 

Dodger barked once, panting in excitement.

 

She pointed at the bedroom door and snapped her fingers. “Go to your bowl.”

 

Dodger bounded off the bed and out of the door, nails scratching as his paws scrambled for purchase on the slick tile floors.

 

Susan flopped back down on the bed, arms thrown wide at her sides, and blew out a long breath. “That was intense.”

 

Brant tried to chuckle, fingers still trembling slightly with adrenaline as he scrubbed his hands over his head again. “That’s some guard dog yah got, Susan.”

 

She rolled onto her side and worked herself up to sitting, expression full of apology and embarrassment as she said, “Tom, I- I am _so_ sorry. I completely forgot to put him out - it’s been so long since - and he’s never liked men - he’s just… he’s…”

 

“Not your average bear?” Brant supplied, leaning against her dresser as he folded his arms over his chest. He quirked his eyebrow at her.

 

She tittered nervously, nodding as she stood. “Well Yogi, that’s one way to put it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to break these chapters into two, because *I* felt it was a hot damn mess to have all this tomfoolery in one place. 
> 
> (Get it? His name is Tom, and I said tomfool- ok, I'll hush)


	18. Leave It To Beaver

He watched her turn the corner and disappear down the hallway, replaying the image of Dodger snapping at him over in his mind. There was that niggling feeling again, like he’d seen that somewhere before.

 

Hunting for his jeans, he called to her, “Where’d you say you got ‘im?”

 

There was a long pause, and as he padded into her kitchen, tugging his tee shirt down over his head, he noticed she was worrying her bottom lip.

 

“He’s from a breeder. He was a stud.”

 

The dog in question was ignoring Brant entirely, sitting poised in front of Susan, ears pricked up and head cocked to the side as he watched Susan’s face. His long tail swished back and forth over the tiles.

 

“Lay down.”

 

He did, catching the treat she tossed him and scarfing it down greedily.

 

“Good boy, Dodge.”

 

Dodger grinned at her.

 

“A breeder?” Brant asked, watching the dog roll over for her. “Why would a breeder want ‘im aggressive?”

 

Susan pretended to concentrate intensely as she balanced a treat on Dodger’s snout. Dodger held perfectly still. “What? Oh, he didn’t.”

 

She clicked her tongue twice. “Ok, get it.”

 

Dodger snapped his head back and caught the treat.

 

“Good boy!” she chirped, rubbing her hands vigorously through his mane. “Go lay down.”

 

Dodger spared Brant a passing glance as he trotted to his bed beside the sofa.  _You're still here?_ , it said.

 

Susan smoothed the fringe out of her eyes, not quite meeting Brant’s as she explained, “That’s why I adopted him. The breeder thought he was too aggressive to breed.”

 

He slide his hands into his jean pockets, watching her fiddle with the ends of her hair as he propped his hip against her counter. “Thought you said ‘is last owner wanted ‘im aggressive.”

 

Why was she lying to him? About this, of all things.

 

She waved her hand, trying to sound dismissive, “Oh, sure, he wanted him aggressive. Just not - you know -  _aggressive_  aggressive. Are you hungry?” she asked loudly.

 

He looked between her anxious smile and Dodger, curled up on his dog bed, and decided it wasn’t that important. He’d drop it for now. “Sure.”

 

She was visibly relieved. “Me too - I’m starving.”

 

She opened the fridge. The door of it was packed with half-drunk cartons of juice and milk, condiments, jars of pickles and sauerkraut. She frowned as she pawed through the contents of her shelves. “Hmm, there’s not a whole lot to choose from - haven’t had time to go to the grocery store -”

 

She bent over to look on the lower shelves, mumbling to herself, “Why do I have three bottles of blue cheese dressing?”

 

He pushed off the counter and reached out to palm her mound from behind, eyes on her generous ass as he ran it up the crack. She yelped and jumped. “Why don’t you let me take yah out?”

 

“Tom!” she gasped as she turned, scrambling to catch his hand in hers. Her eyes were wide as tea saucers.

 

He smirked, pressing her against the open fridge, one strong arm about her waist to keep her from falling in and the other hand gripping the handle of the freezer compartment beside her head. She clapped her hands to his biceps for balance.

 

He flexed. “C’mon, fox. Lemme buy yah breakfast. S’what I came ‘ere for, anyway.”

 

“R-really?” she asked, eyes flitting between his and his mouth.

 

He nodded.

 

“Wow, Susan,” she admonished herself softly with a half-smile. “Way to put the cart before the horse, girlfriend.”

 

“Didn’t mind a’tall,” he told her.

 

“Puh - I bet.”

 

He grinned. “Not much for followin’ protocol either, me.”

 

“Who, you?” She smiled, wrinkling her nose at him cutely. “Noo. I don’t believe that.”

 

“C’mon, darlin’,” he rumbled, mouth hovering over hers. “Let me feed yah.”

 

She pushed herself up onto the balls of her feet and kissed him deeply, arms winding around his neck and breasts pressed against his chest. His hand kneaded her ass.

 

“Ok,” she breathed as they pulled apart. She pressed another kiss to his lips, this one soft and closed-mouthed. “Let me shower first?”

 

“Sure,” he murmured, running his fingertips up and down the center of her low back. The cold air rolling out of the refrigerator made the fabric of her tee shirt cool-to-the-touch.

 

“Hey, Tom?”

 

His eyes wandered down her face, to where her tits were pressed against him. He grunted.

 

She cleared her throat. “Do you - uh - think you could… let me get to the shower?”

 

 _Shower?_  “What?”

 

Did she want to get naked with him?

 

Susan, wet and naked, pressed up against him. Water running down her tits and over her belly, beading in the soft curls of her sex. Soft, wet Susan -

 

“Tah-ahm,” he heard her call. Her dimples popped out under the apples of her cheeks as she fought a smile. “You’re kind of blocking my path. To the shower?”

 

“Lessgo,” he growled, shoving off the fridge. He caught her by the elbow and tugged her along behind him.

 

“Whoa - slow your roll, buddy!” She stretched back to push the door of the fridge closed. It shut with a soft,  _Wham!_

 

“Where’s the shower?” he asked as he marched them down the hall, wrenching open doors. Her bedroom, a linen closet, an office…

 

“It’s in the bedroom - Tom!” She tugged her elbow out of his grip and clapped her hands in front of his face.

 

He blinked. “What?”

 

“You cannot shower with me.” She propped her hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows at him.  _No wet Susan for you_ , her look said.

 

_What the fuck?_

 

He looked around like the answer might be written on the hallway walls. “Why the bloody ‘ell not?”

 

“The shower’s too small!” she huffed. Then added, concentrating on the ends of her hair as she combed her fingers through them, “I don’t think we’ll both fit…”

 

She took a deep breath, tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “It’ll just take me a sec, ok?” She waved her hand towards the living room. “Make yourself at home.”

 

She glanced back at him over her shoulder as she stepped into her bedroom. “Don’t touch the dog.”

 

And shut the door in his face.

 

The lock clicked before his brain had a chance to catch up. “Susan - wait - Susan, Goddamnit.”

 

He felt in his pockets for his multi tool. It was in his jacket, and his jacket was inside her bedroom.

 

_Fuck._

 

He pressed his ear to the door and rapped lightly, ignoring her, “In a  _minute_ , Tom! Crying Pete…”

 

Hollow core, hardwood slab, three hinges. One kick and that’d be all she wrote.

 

He glanced at Dodger, dozing on his dog bed, ear twitching rhythmically.

 

_Maybe not._

 

He went into the kitchen. It was a good-sized flat - whoever had converted the building to units had spared no expense. Crown moldings, glossy tile floors in the hallway and common rooms, walls painted a flat, muted tone. The kitchen was spacious, with black appliances and granite countertops. He searched through her kitchen drawers one-by-one, looking for -

 

He held up a metal shish kabob skewer, “Lovely” and hip-checked the drawer closed.

 

Dodger’s head popped up. He eyed Brant suspiciously, lips curling over his teeth in a silent sneer.

 

“‘ave we met?” Brant asked him, eyes narrowing right back.

 

Dodger snorted derisively and buried his snout in his blanket. 

 

“Guv,” Brant pinched an imaginary hat brim and tipped it to him. “If you’ll excuse me.”

 

He inserted the tip of the skewer into the small hole in the door handle, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated on finding where the resistance was. “A one and’a two and’a-”

 

The lock clicked and the handle turned easily.

 

“Nifty li'le things, ain't they?” Brant asked Dodger as he rapped the skewer smartly against the door handle. Dodger pretended not to hear him.

 

He heard water running, and Susan singing softly, “- a mess without my little China girl… wha-oh, wha-oh! Wake up in the mornings… where’s my little China girl-a-irl-a-irl…”

 

He grinned, dragging his shirt off and stepping out of his jeans and briefs. She hadn’t locked the bathroom door.

 

There she was - he could see her through the glass shower door - hair gathered in a messy, lopsided topknot, covered in suds, be-bopping to the beat in her head as she sang, “- you television… give you eyes of blue-oo-oo, oo-oo -”

 

The shower door rattled a bit as it opened, and as he stepped in he said, “Sorry, don’t know that one, luv. ‘ow bout we sing  _Danny Boy_ instead?”

 

The next words to  _China Girl_  caught in her throat and she jumped, opening her mouth to scream.

 

He stepped up and kissed her.

 

She’d been right, the shower was a tight fit for the two of them.

 

 _Perfect_ , he thought as he crowded her against the tiles. The hot water felt so good as it beat against his back, and Susan was warm and wet, her soap-slicked skin sliding against his as he cupped her tits and pressed his hard-on against her belly.

 

“Tom-” She tipped her head back and turned it away from his, trying to avoid his mouth as she gasped, “how the heck did you get in here?”

 

 _What a stupid fuckin’ question_.

 

He snorted against her neck, kissing the soft skin there. “Picked the lock.”

 

“You…?” Her hands hooked over his biceps as he sucked her pulse-point, head turning a little more. “That is super rude.”

 

He put his mouth right against her ear as he rumbled, “Want me to go?”

 

“That’d be… cutting off my nose to spite my… oh God!”

 

He’d worked his hand under her belly and between her thighs and found the little dip in her clit with his fingers.

 

She sucked her tongue as he slipped a finger inside her. “Gentle gentle.”

 

“Not gonna ‘urtcha,” he breathed. He meant it.

 

He glanced down and around them, spied the ledge at the bottom fourth of the shower. “Put your foot up right ‘ere, sweet’eart.”

 

“You want me to… put what… I-”

 

God, he loved the way she went soft and dazed in his arms when he wound her up.

 

One hand still fingering her, he bent and caught the fleshy inside of her knee, lifting up. She clamped down on his arms. “Whoa, wait-”

 

“‘old on, ‘old on, I gottcha.” He set her foot firmly on the ledge and wound his arm around her waist. With his other hand, he grabbed his cock.

 

“Think I’d let yah go tumblin’ down?” He nudged her nose with his as he pressed the blunt tip of his cock against her entrance. He pulled her away from the tiles as her head fell back. “Careful, luv. Don’t bonk yourself.”

 

She was panting, lips parted and eyes closed as he pushed into her. She gritted her teeth when he’d sunk in as far as he could with her belly between them.

 

He nudged her nose again. “S’alright?”

 

“Yeah,” she nodded, cracking an eye open. “You’re really big.”

 

“S’what you keep sayin’.”

 

She choked up her grip on his arms, glancing down at her raised knee doubtfully. “If you drop me, God so help me, I’m taking you down with me.”

 

“Told you already,” he grunted, drawing his hips back and sinking in again slowly. She moaned. “Takes a lot more than the likes’a you tah kill me, fox.”

 

“Doubt it,” she whispered, eyes still closed as she smiled.

 

He tipped her chin. “Look at me.”

 

She did, flinching slightly as water from the shower head hit his shoulders and bounced onto her face. He ran the pad of his thumb along her plump bottom lip.

 

“What, baby?” she asked softly, big green eyes looking up at him with a mix of exasperation and tenderness. She smiled. 

 

The feeling in center of his chest - the tight pinch and the raw tearing - had almost nothing to do with his injuries, he was pretty sure.

 

He kissed her as they made love, rubbing his thumb along her temple and her cheek and reveling in her soft sighs every time he stroked into her. She whispered against his mouth, coaxing, “Yes, baby” and “uhn Tom” and “so good.”

 

“Faster, Tom. Give it to me faster,” she told him, squeezing his biceps and pressing down to meet his thrusts. "Yes - uhh God - so good, baby."

 

She shook in his arms as she came, going heavy and pliant. He shifted her, letting the shower wall take more of her weight as he stroked into her faster. “Fuck, sweet’eart…”

 

Fuck, she felt so good. So wet. So - wait a tick. 

 

_Oh. Shit._

 

He pulled out of her as he felt his balls draw up, reaching between them to pump himself to finish. Three strokes and he was coming on in long white streaks on her belly.

 

_Shit - bollocks - Goddamn -_

 

“Fuck.”

 

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asked sweetly, reaching up to smooth her hand over his head.

 

Still panting, he looked down at his cock, sandwiched upright between his abs and her belly, and back at her.

 

She looked down and back at him, confused, and then her eyes widened and she said, “Oh dear God.”

 

Her head fell back on the tiles with a soft  _thunk_. “You have got to be kidding me,” she groaned.

 

“I pulled out,” he offered, trying to sound reassuring. She gave him a flat look.

 

“Oh, great. Really makes me feel better. Gee, where’d you hear  _that_  sound piece of advice? Your nineteen-seventy-five Sex Ed class?” she snapped, tipping her chin down to frown at him. “Did they tell you you can catch AIDS from kissing, too? Christmas on a cracker,” she growled.

 

“Alright, alright, take it easy.” He held up his hand,  _Relax_. “Got a bit-” he made a vague gesture, “carried away -”

 

She sputtered, “ _Carried away_ -”

 

“- way you looked, tits out and soaking wet -”

 

“- remind you that I am a medical professional, and intimately familiar with the ramifications -”

 

“- wasn’t thinkin’ with the right ‘ead, if yah know what I mean, luv -”

 

“- I’d assumed even you knew where babies came from, Sergeant -”

 

“- can’t think straight round you, Susan. You’re too fuckin’ beautiful -”

 

“Wait, what?” She blinked. “What did you just say?”

 

“Susan,” he rubbed his hand over his head. “Look, I’m sorry, alright?”

 

Jesus, when did he start apologizing to people?

 

They looked at each other for a few beats. He asked her quietly, “Do yah want me tah go?”

 

She heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes. “Nooo.”

 

She patted his chest. “Let’s just use our common sense next time, ok Mister Eager Beaver? Or we’ll end up with kits in the lodge, and this is really a single-beaver lodge, and Dodger’s used to being an only kit -”

 

_What the fuck is she on about?_

 

He chuckled, “You’re so fuckin’ strange, yah know that?”

 

She gave him a sidelong look, “Is that any way to talk to the mother of your kits?”

 

They were both laughing as he kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, this chapter was supposed to end in aching passion and the whispers of deep feelings, and theeen about the time Tom realizes he's not wearing a condom, is the exact moment *Pastel* realized she forgot to write one on him. 
> 
> Shit.
> 
> And I was super proud of myself for writing safe sex in this fic. That's what I get for getting uppity. I knew I had two choices: 1) just finish the chapter with all the aching and the whispers and hope no one noticed or 2) beavers.
> 
> Right? I thought so too :>


End file.
